


to hijack world history with you

by thesilverwitch (orphan_account)



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, M/M, Minor Character Death, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-03-26 16:43:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3857755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/thesilverwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Ridiculous. I know we’re in an economic crisis and all that, but what? The IAC can no longer afford trained agents, so they’re sending whoever else is around, consequences be damned?” Isco muttered to himself as he paced around the room. Toni rolled his eyes at him through the mirror, knowing Isco wouldn’t see him.</p><p>“I’m not whoever else. For your information, I have been trained,” Toni said.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. fire

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is **unfinished**.
> 
> In my opinion, it's still a good read since you get all the good relationship bits plus a bunch of cool action, but if you decide to give it a chance please remember that the main plot line is left unresolved. x

Toni wasn’t meant to be there. He knew this well, having heard Isco moan and whine about it incessantly for the past ten minutes.

“Ridiculous. I know we’re in an economic crisis and all that, but what? The IAC can no longer afford trained agents, so they send whoever is available, consequences be damned?” Isco muttered to himself as he paced around the room. Toni rolled his eyes at him through the mirror, knowing Isco wouldn’t see him.

“I’m not whoever else. For your information, I have been trained,” he said.

He wasn’t sure what was so wrong about him being there. Sure, he wasn’t a field agent. He didn’t have the same kind of training or skills as Isco, not by a long shot, but he wasn’t completely inept either. He had done a couple of field missions before with other agents. Simple stuff, like the one they were doing today. Get in, get the information and get out. Nobody got hurt, nobody saw them and nothing was destroyed.

Toni knew he was capable of doing this job and he felt a little annoyed—and upset too, if he was honest—that Isco seemed to hold such a different opinion of him.

“It’s not the same. You got essential training. The ‘what to do in case it all goes to shit’ training, which is really important and I’m glad you have it, but it’s not the same. You’re a techie, you’re not supposed to be doing this.”

“Isco, we’re going to a banquet to steal a rich guy’s wallet and necklace. This is not exactly top of the line stuff,” Toni said.

Just last month Isco had climbed the bloody _Everest_ in pursuit of an international arms dealer. That had been fine. That had been part of the job. Toni had spent hours without sleeping or eating, watching his computer screen, using all the resources he had at hand and then some more that he ‘requested’ from the CIA to keep track of Isco.

He hated that kind of mission. It was exhilarating, he wouldn’t deny it, but it left him too powerless for his liking. There was nothing he could do for Isco when the man was on the other side of the world, thousands of meters above sea level and away from civilization, barely trackable through their satellites.

“Something could go wrong,” Isco spit out, turning away to glance out the window. “I don’t like it.”

Toni rolled his eyes once more but refrained from replying.

Since they would be attending a banquet, black tie was required for both of them. Toni had picked out the only good suit he owned and he was now adding the final touches to his outfit. The jacket was a deep navy blue, which people—mainly Sergio, who had picked the suit for him in the first place—said contrasted well with his eyes. The slacks were a simple, infallible black. He wore a bowtie. 

This was a slight problem as Toni, with all his immeasurable skills in hacking, engineering and innovating, didn’t know how to tie a bowtie. The few times he’d worn the suit before, someone—again, usually Sergio, but also Iker or Marcelo if they were around, and once, Mr. Ancelotti—would tie it for him.

Toni glanced at Isco.

They had been working together for a year now, ever since Toni was transferred from political to weapons dealing and added a whole new array of chaotic, explosive and _oh god, Isco, what have you done?_ to his life that he didn’t even know was missing. He got along well with Isco. They seemed to understand each other with a remarkable ease and Toni liked him, a lot, despite the fact that the man had no measure of danger and often put himself in awful positions, giving Toni a mild heart attack each time.

Again, the Everest mission. Toni would never let that one go.

Two days ago, before they got this mission assigned to them, Toni would have said they were friends. They did a lot of things together that went beyond their assigned work. Toni was often the one who patched up Isco after a mission, since the agent had a ridiculous aversion to medical staff, who were, in his own words, too overbearing. Toni knew how to cook all of Isco’s favorite dishes and make his favorite drink—a complicated combination of lime, strawberries, orange and lots of cachaça.

They had spent many a night on Toni’s couch, watching basketball and eating unhealthy snacks because it wasn’t easy to meet people in their line of work and again, Toni liked Isco. He even knew Isco’s first name, which was why he only called him _Agente Veintitrés_ when other people were around. This secret had shared during a mission that almost ended in Isco’s death. Toni had kept it close to his heart ever since.

They were friends. There was no way they weren’t.

Still, Toni hesitated.

Isco had his hands pressed tight into two white fists. There was blood staining the inner linings of his lips from Isco’s terrible habit of bitting the inside of his mouth when he was anxious. Toni pretended not to notice.

It was obvious he didn’t want Toni there, he’d said so much multiple times. He was angry, not just at Mr. Ancelotti for putting Toni on the line, but also at Toni for accepting the assignment.

Toni glanced at himself in the mirror. He’d styled his hair, pushed it carefully to the side and then to back. His face was devoid of his usual nervous shine. Makeup was a miracle. He looked good. Maybe he could forego the bowtie.

Toni pulled the bowtie from his collar and put it down on the sink in front of him. Isco saw him do it and made a noise. “What are you—“ he said, stopping mid-sentence when the realization hit him. He was a fast thinker. It was one of his many qualities. “Here, give it to me.”

Without a word, Toni handed over the bowtie, knowing he couldn’t refuse even if he wanted to. 

Isco’s fingers moved with levity and ease. He pushed Toni back a step, sliding into the space between Toni’s body and the sink. Toni watched Isco’s face. The concentrated glint in his eyes. The furrow of his eyebrows. He glanced at Isco’s hands, marked with a few cuts that hadn’t healed quite right. Consequences of the job.

Those hands had killed. With the same quick and expert ease that they used on Toni’s bowtie, they had snapped necks and wrung the life out of trembling bodies.

This realization should have been petrifying, but it had no affect on Toni. He began working for a secret intelligence agency two years ago. It would take a lot more than standing next to Isco to scare him.

Not to mention, Toni had seen those same hands pick up wounded people and carrying them to safety countless times. He had seen them disarming bombs, patching wounds and saving lives. He’d seen Isco perform pure miracles, pulling impossible stunts out of nowhere and somehow come out unscathed. He had seen a lot.

Toni exhaled a touch too loud when Isco took a step away from him.

“We should go. It’s nearly time for dinner,” Isco said. In reply, he received a shaky nod.

They had a car waiting for them, a black Mercedes, untraceable and fit with enough hidden mechanisms to give a TSA agent a fit. Their driver didn’t talk and neither did they, an unusual arrangement for them. For the past year, whenever Isco headed out on an assignment, Toni’s voice had been a constant stream of information in his Agent’s left ear while Isco talked about whatever he felt like.

Today, Isco had adapted a steel posture and Toni was unsure if he was allowed to breach it.

“Do you want to go over the plan?” he asked. This was as safe a topic as he could think of.

“We go to the banquet, where we’ll be seated in Piqué’s table. We make small talk, crack a few jokes, don’t pull attention to ourselves. Near the end of the night, I’ll spill wine on Piqué’s clothes and steal his wallet and necklace while I pretend to help him clean up.”

Toni nodded. He already knew all of this by heart, as did Isco, but this was routine and it was easy. “And our backstory?”

“We’re a couple,” Isco replied. His expression slipped from detached professionalism to a frown for a moment and Toni didn’t miss it. It was impossible not to. “My dad is a rich hotel owner in Ibiza and you’re my trophy boyfriend.”

Toni laughed, even though he knew he shouldn’t. This was their genuine backstory, although ‘trophy boyfriend’ seemed a generous term when applied to him.

“It will be fine,” he said. Isco made a noise in reply and didn’t say anything. Toni thought of continuing the conversation, but let a charged silence fill the air instead. Isco didn’t want to talk and he wouldn’t stretch himself to do so either.

The banquet they were attending was in Madrid’s City Hall, which had been decorated lavishly for the event in various tones of gold and white. There were golden curtains near every window and white trees; golden streamers and white paper flakes falling from the ceiling; crystal cups with rims covered in gold paint and pure white tablecloth.

Toni found the whole thing a bit… tacky. He could tell Isco thought the same, from the ever so slight downwards curve of his mouth. 

Everyone else at the party seemed to love it, however, or they were just that much better at pretending. Toni recognized most of the guests from their briefing and from watching the news. They were important people. Rich business owners, international politicians and even a couple of royals.

Toni saw Queen Letizia on the other side of the room talking to none other than the German president. He moved his hand to Isco’s arm and pointed them out, but Isco barely seemed to notice. His eyes were scanning the room in search for their target. 

Toni moved to put some space between them, but Isco stopped him with an arm around his waist.

“We’re supposed to be a couple,” he said. He didn’t even look at Toni’s face as he spoke. Toni bit down on the bitter taste of disappointment that was surging up his throat and acquiesced. 

While they waited for dinner to start, they made small talk with the city president of Sevilla, who was already entertaining two drinks and making steadfast endeavor on consuming a third. Isco told some story about the last vacation he and Toni had taken together and how he’d fallen into a pool at a party while fully dressed.

“And you should have seen my suit! It was Armani. Got completely ruined. You just can’t get rid of chlorine stains. I was embarrassed beyond belief, but then Thomas,” that’s Toni’s name for the evening, “decided to jump in and share some of the embarrassment. Make it look like we were jumping on purpose and that I hadn’t slipped. Before we knew it, everyone else was joining us and we had started a huge pool party. Thank you for that, by the way. My eternal savior,” Isco turned to Toni and flashed him a bright, caring smile.

“No problem, sweetheart,” Toni said, the nickname slipping past his lips completely on its own. Toni complemented it by laughing at Isco’s story. The sound didn’t sound fake in his ears and he could feel Isco’s approval when the man stroked the small of his back. 

Dinner was more of the same small talk. There were eight others on their table. Lawyers and business people mostly. Toni made sure to laugh at all of Isco’s jokes and listen to everyone talk.

The man they were after, Piqué, was a Catalan born and bred and suspected of being connected to the sale of thousands of euros worth in weapons to warlords in South America. He was fat, with too many kilos around the waist, but he was also taller than Toni and built like a brick house. His hair was beginning to fall off and it was noticeable, despite his best efforts to comb over the bald areas. He was a lover of outdoor sports and listened with rapt attention when Isco told him about his own adventures in rock climbing and open-sea diving.

The funny thing was, they were only half lies, since Isco’s job did cover everything from rock climbing to chasing after people in BMXs to competitive fishing. Toni listened with a smile on his face as he kept an eye of Piqué’s wife, who didn’t seem interested in any of Isco’s stories. A couple of other people at their table were listening in, although most were more interested in their phones.

Toni, himself, didn’t participate in the conversation. He had done a few missions like this one before, but that didn’t mean he was any good at them. He knew all the people at the table. He had been the one who wrote all their profiles and he knew their likes and dislikes. He knew everyone who was at the party, in fact, from guests to staff to the uninvited. He knew where all the exits were and what type of weaponry Isco had under his jacket.

He did not know how to make small talk.

Just like they planned, as desserts were being served, Isco spilled his glass of wine on Piqué’s white shirt and immediately started apologizing profusely. The man himself didn’t seem all that bothered, but his wife gave Isco a scathing look that had Toni feeling indignant on principle.

“I’ll go with you,” Isco offered as Piqué got up to go to the bathroom. “We can switch shirts, appease my guilt a little,” he said, which made Piqué cackle loudly.

“I think you’re a size too small, but you can help me steal a shirt from one of the waiters if you’d like,” he said, making Isco laugh in return.

They left together and Toni did not watch them leave. Isco would be back soon and they would make their escape not too long after.

He toyed with his glass of wine and the napkin on his lap. He had to resist the urge to reach up and fix his hair. He knew he would only make it look worse.

“So, what do you do, Thomas?” Piqué’s wife, Isabel, asked him. She had moved seats so that she was sat next to Toni.

“Computer engineering,” he replied. It was close to the truth, which made things easier for him. ‘Don’t tell lies you don’t need’ was one of their rules for undercover work. The best cover story was often the one closest truth.

Isabel raised an eyebrow at him. “Interesting job.”

“Is it?” Toni asked, unable to hide his surprise. He certainly found his job interesting, but he didn’t know too many people who shared his opinion.

“I’m sure,” she replied with a charming smile. She was beautiful, Toni noticed. Too beautiful for her loaf of a husband, in Toni’s opinion, but who was he to pass judgement?

“Would you like to come outside with me?” Isabel asked him.

Toni didn’t, actually. Isco would be back any second now and Toni should wait for him. Only, he found it hard to say ‘no’ to Isabel. With a hand around his arm, she helped him stand up.

Toni’s body moved against his will as he let her guide him towards the front doors. This had nothing to do with how charming and beautiful Isabel was. Toni wanted to go back to his seat, but it was as if there wasn’t enough will in his body to do anything but what this woman asked of him.

“I have a car here. Let’s go,” Isabel told him, handing a small card to the valet near the front steps.

Again, Toni tried to refuse, but the only word he got out after seconds of struggling was, “Isco.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Kroos. I’m sure agent Alarcón will come after you,” she said. Her words were like a bucket of cold water, but her smile was so soothing it warmed Toni’s core.

None of this was right.

Toni angled his body towards the City Hall. “Isco,” he repeated, this time louder.

There was a man near the doors running towards them, but he wasn’t quick enough. In a moment’s notice, Toni was tossed into the backseat of the car and the driver took off. Not too long after, he passed out, lulled to slumber by a slick, nauseous haze.

— — —

He slept in intervals and woke up disorientated each time. His body didn’t feel his own. It was as if someone had stolen his soul and then tried to put it back, but couldn’t figure out how to do it properly, so they just shoved it in without a care. He couldn’t move his arms or legs, although that might also be because he was tied to a chair.

Every time he tried to open his eyes, he found that the motion made him feel sick, so he tried to focus on his other senses instead. He could hear voices. A man and a woman speaking in fire-rapid Spanish that Toni, despite being fluent in the language, had trouble understanding. Their words fell heavy in his ears and he couldn’t even focus on them.

He struggled to remember what his training instructed him to do in situations like this. He couldn’t focus on anything but the motion of his chest as he pulled in aching breath after aching breath.

In seconds, he would be asleep from the IV drip connected to his vein and the whole process would repeat itself.

— — —

Sometimes he was able to catch a few words. Something like, “they haven’t called,” and then afterwards, “he’s persistent.”

Toni breathed, and he breathed, and he breathed.

— — —

When he woke up for what had to be the sixth or seventh time, but could as just as well be the thirtieth, opening his eyes no longer made him nauseous.

Toni saw a pool of blood at his feet.

The nausea returned.

He could hear shouting nearby.

Toni tested the strength of the ropes around his wrists. They weren’t that tight, but he was still too out of it to do anything about them. He opened his eyes again and scanned the room he was in. White walls, wooden floor and no furniture. The body of a short man lied by the only window, which had its blinds closed. There were glass shards on the floor, but there was a gun in the man’s hand. Toni began to edge his chair closer to him.

The effort took everything out of him. By the time he reached the man’s corpse, Toni’s lungs were rattling in his chest and there was a pain so sharp in his heart that he couldn’t hear anything but the bloodstream in his ears. 

He pushed himself to the right and let his body fall. Falling, at least, was easy. Anyone could fall.

His head hit the floor and Toni had to close his eyes again. He didn’t know how long he spent in that position, lying next to a cold corpse with a gun a few centimeters away from his hands. Slowly, he reached for the metal weapon and then, with even more patience, angled his body so that the gun was pointing at the door.

Outside he could still hear shouting and shooting. Not a good sign.

The smell of blood filled his nostrils and kept him awake. Toni didn’t glance at the liquid seeping into his clothes, knowing it would distract him. As whatever drugs he was on were filtered out of his system, his awareness came back to him and so did his ability to feel fear. He was trained for this, but training and experiencing the real thing were entirely different.

When the door finally opened, Toni’s finger reached for the trigger. He stopped himself in time, barely so.

“Toni,” Isco said before he rushed towards him. Toni dropped the gun.

He was freed from the ropes around his wrists and legs in the time it took to assess Isco’s body. 

“Are you bleeding?” he asked, making the other man shook his head.

“Just a gunshot wound. What about you?”

Toni’s stomach dropped. “What do you mean ‘just a gunshot wound’? Isco, there is no such thing,” he said, the words coming out in a strangled whisper.

“I’m fine, it barely grazed me,” Isco repeated. He didn’t look fine. He had a cut above his eyebrow from which he was bleeding and the skin beneath his eyes was a mesh of purple and crimson. There was a deep red stain on his left shoulder, so that must be where he got shot. Toni reached for it. That was when he noticed Isco’s hands.

“Your hands are shaking,” he said, stating the obvious.

Isco huffed. “Why are we still talking about me?”

His hands, which were definitely shaking, skated over Toni’s body as they searched for injuries. When they found none, Isco let out a relieved sigh.

They helped each other up and Isco guided him out of the house. They passed a couple more bodies on their way out. Toni didn’t look at them.

“What happened?” he asked.

“It was an ambush. Piqué wanted to get me away from the table so they could kidnap you and use you as a pawn for information. I thought,” Isco pulled in a sharp breath and shook his head. “I thought they were going to torture you.”

“I’m not hurt,” Toni said, staring at Isco, who refused to look at him.

“Yeah,” Isco said in reply. He looked down and took a deep breath before he raised his head  again and stared straight ahead. 

Black cars lined the street in front of them, as well as some police cars. Isco didn’t stop to talk to anyone, not even the paramedics. Toni knew he should intervene. Any other mission and he’d be ranting in Isco’s ears right now about proper medical care and not exposing himself to unnecessary danger.

Today, he kept walking.

Dawn was beginning to break to their left, over the horizon. A few streaks of pink and orange lifted the sky in cheery pastels.

“You should drive,” Isco told him, looking down at his own shoulder. Toni nodded.

He drove them back to his apartment, unable to stand the thought of going back to headquarters tonight. Mr. Ancelotti would be there, as well as some of the other senior agents. He would have to debrief soon and explain things he had no answer to, but all that went through his head was _not today_. He would deal with work tomorrow. Today was over for him.

Toni’s apartment was a hole in the wall in Malasaña. The living room and the kitchen were mashed together in one area, which connected to a minuscular hall that led to the single bathroom and Toni’s bedroom. The last room fitted a bed and a dresser with some effort. Despite its size, Toni’s fondness for neat, minimalistic styles, with all its clean lines and vacant spaces, made it look bigger than it was. 

Coming home was always a comfort for him. He didn’t know how Isco felt, but he imagined he liked being there as well.

He had never been to Isco’s place and he’d often wondered what it looked like. He imagined it would be small, like his, but more cluttered, full of tokens from the places Isco had visited. Maybe even some pictures of his family.

“You know I’m not a real medic, right?” Toni asked as he walked to the bathroom to pick up his first aid kit, stopping by the bedroom afterwards to grab a clean change of clothes.

“I know,” Isco replied. Usually, there would be a string of laughter attached to his reply, but tonight there was only a vague sense of detachment. 

Isco sat on one of the two barstools in Toni’s eating space while Toni helped him take off his clothes. His white shirt was covered in red and his jacket was ripped to shreds. Toni grimaced.

The wound itself wasn’t that bad. Isco hadn’t lied. It was a graze. A deep graze, that had taken off a chip of Isco’s shoulder, but a graze nonetheless. Toni cleaned it carefully.

“I’m sorry,” he said each time Isco hissed.

“It’s fine. It’s fine,” Isco said as he pulled in stuttering breaths through his nose.

When he was done with the shoulder wound, Toni moved on to Isco’s eyebrow. He wiped it an antiseptic cloth, then patched it with a band-aid. He only glanced at Isco’s eyes once and saw that the other man was staring fixedly at the ceiling.

“There,” he said when he was done.

Toni took a step away from Isco and handed him the t-shirt and the sweatpants he had picked for him. Isco didn’t have any issues with changing in front of Toni, but Toni still looked away while he took off his pants. 

“I’m sorry,” Toni said when Isco was dressed, making Isco look up at him. Their eyes met for the first time since Isco had come to Toni’s rescue. “I should have been more careful and tried to defend myself. I’m sorry.”

“This is not your fault. I told you, we were ambushed. You weren’t even supposed to be there,” Isco frowned at him.

Toni turned away, shaking his head. Again with the not supposed to be there stuff. Maybe Isco was right. Maybe Toni was better off handling the behind the scenes and nothing else.

“Right. You’ve said so a bunch of times.” Toni nodded, more to himself than to Isco. “I think I’m gonna go to bed now. You can sleep on the couch if you’d like.”

He didn’t look at Isco, but he could see Isco staring at him. The depth of his graze burned holes into Toni’s head.

“Toni.” Isco grabbed Toni’s arm. Toni forced himself to look him in the eye. He saw Isco’s bottom lip tremble and he waited for Isco to continue, but whatever it was that he wanted to say refused to be spoken.

Toni grabbed Isco’s hand and gently pulled it away from him.

“Goodnight, Isco.”

Toni took a long shower before he went to bed. He set the water on the right side of scalding and watched as his skin was cleared away of blood, turning a feverish pink shade from the heat minutes later.

When he came out of the bathroom, Isco was no longer there. Toni wasn’t surprised.

He slept until the late afternoon, woken up by a nightmare about the previous night, only this time Isco was the one tied to the chair and Toni wasn’t fast enough to save him. 

He reckoned he would have to tell his psychiatrist about this in one of his IAC mandated appointments, which was just as well. The man was always complaining that Toni never shared anything.

When he finally got to work the next day, there were numerous reports on his desk. There was also a letter written in Mr. Ancelotti’s neat handwriting.

_Agente Veintitrés has requested to be reassigned to money laundering. You will be assigned to a new agent in a week. In the meantime, take a few days off. You have two weeks to write a full report on what happened in your last mission._

_Best regards,_

_Carlo Ancelotti_

_Oh_ , Toni thought, and then he breathed, and he breathed, and he breathed.


	2. smoke

“There are two people on the corridor to your right. Possibly armed. Be careful,” said Toni. 

In reply, he received a softly whispered, “Got it.”

Toni kept his eyes locked on the monitor, from which he could see the heat images of everyone in the building. They were rescuing the Spanish ambassador in France, who had been kidnapped earlier that week. It wasn’t their usual type of assignment, but Toni’s agent had been nearby after uncovering an illegal weapons scheme in Andorra and Mr. Ancelotti had seen fit to send him.

Toni heard the sound of shots being fired and waited with bated breath for his agent to say something. He saw the heat wave of the two armed men shift, but the images were too out of focus for him to decipher what it meant. Finally, after an excruciatingly long second, Toni heard what he wanted and exhaled.

“I’m good. Security guards are down. Anything else I need to worry about?” Agente Catorce asked. 

Toni’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “Nothing I can see. Take the corridor on the right and then turn left. The ambassador should be on the first door to the left.”

“Okay,” Agente Catorce whispered. His image moved swiftly across the screen. Toni shifted between feeds, but didn’t see anything else Agente Catorce needed to know about. Their transport was ten minutes away. Toni sent them a message telling them to get to Agente Catorce in five.

When Agente Catorce opened the door to the ambassador’s room, he let out a low hiss. 

“That bad?” Toni asked. They didn’t have any information on how the ambassador was being kept, but Toni had seen—and lived—enough scenarios similar to this one to know how they usually went down.

“He’ll need surgery,” was Agente Catorce’s answer. Toni hummed in reply and sent another message, this time asking for a medical team.

“Take the elevator. I’ve got control of it right now,” Toni told Agente Catorce, who didn’t hesitate to follow his instructions.

They were out of the building in seconds, with Agente Catorce carrying the ambassador over his shoulder. As he guided the ambulance away from traffic, Toni caught some kind of slurred conversation between them that mostly consisted of Agente Catorce repeating _everything will be fine_.

After making sure the ambassador was in safe hands, Agente Catorce entered the car Toni had waiting for him. It would to take him directly to the closest airport.

They didn’t talk through the drive, and eventually Agente Catorce told him he was going to take a nap and signed out, a regular occurrence. Agents didn’t make it a habit to talk to their assigned tech agent unless they needed something. Even though they had been working together for six months now, the lack of conversation sat wrong with Toni, who was still used to Isco’s warm voice and his constant stream of chatter.

Toni leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, breathing in deeply. He wasn’t sure when was the last time he had gone home. Three days ago maybe? He was sure he had slept at some point, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember if he’d done so on a comfortable surface or on his desk.

With a lot effort, Toni lifted his head and scanned the office. Everyone was there, which meant they were probably in middle of the day right now. He accidentally made eye contact with James and waved when the other man smiled at him.

“Assignment finally over?” James asked.

Toni was on a name basis with most of the engineers, technicians and even a couple of agents that worked for the IAC. Whether it was a real name or a fake one was a different matter and one he didn’t dwell on. He had once asked Agente Catorce if he wanted to be called by another name, but the man just shook his head and told him he preferred to keep his personal life away from his professional one. Toni hadn’t dwelt on that either.

“Yeah, just need to wait for him to get on the plane and then I think I’ll head home.”

“If you want I can do it for you. I don’t have a lot of work to do right now. And before you ask, you’re beginning to smell, so this would help me as much as it helps you.”

Toni cringed, but he was too tired to feel properly embarrassed. “Thanks,” he said. He confirmed he had a first class seat—the man deserved it—on a direct flight to Madrid booked for Agente Catorce and grabbed his coat. It wasn’t as if he would go far. He could be at headquarters in twenty minutes if they needed him.

He took the subway home, not in the right headspace to drive, and fell asleep on a stranger’s shoulder. Toni mumbled his apologies when the man woke him up a few minutes later.

“I’m so sorry,” Toni said, scrubbing his eyes in an effort to make them open wider. The man chuckled.

“I’d let you sleep, but I don’t know which stop is yours.”

“It’s fine,” Toni replied. He saw how the man’s eyes lingered on him and he felt flattered, in a detached sort of way. The man was attractive. He had dark skin and a buzz cut, as well as an easy smile and lean body. Toni hadn’t dated anyone in a while—in a very long while, actually—and this man checked all the boxes for him.

On the next station, Toni got up and left even though it wasn’t his stop.

He wasn’t looking into dating anyone right now. He was busy with work and everything else.

Toni didn’t linger too long on what this ‘everything else’ was, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer if he looked too closely.

He went into work the next day before the sun had risen. Agente Catorce would be back by now and Toni needed to check on his equipment and replace any broken pieces. He also wanted to try his hands on installing a heat camera on regular sunglasses, and he figured he could start work on that while he filled whatever reports he had waiting for him.

Being the first to arrive at work meant he had to man the coffee machine, but it also meant fresh coffee, so he wasn’t allowed any room to complain. 

Toni walked into the break room with his eyes half-closed, a yawn on the tip of his tongue. He was brushing his hair away from his forehead when he saw he wasn’t alone.

His step faltered for a moment as he lost his momentum, but he picked himself up before Isco noticed, or at least Toni wanted to believe so.

“Hi,” Toni said, aiming for casual. Isco was by the coffee pot, pouring himself a large mug. He wouldn’t add any sugar or cream, but he’d reach for the milk in the fridge in just a second. Isco never had his coffee black unless he didn’t have a choice in the matter.

“Hey.” Isco gave him a quick glance before he turned to his coffee again. “You look like shit,” he said in a conversational tone.

Toni laughed, despite himself. This was the third time he saw Isco in six months and that was what the man chose to say. Brilliant.

“Says the person currently sporting a black eye,” Toni fired back.

Toni didn’t ask how Isco was injured. It wasn’t his business anymore and in any case, he could always ask Illarra, Isco’s new tech, about it or hack into a few files and see for himself. He had done so numerous times the past few months. When he was alone late at night and the only thought going through his head was how much he missed spending time with Isco, watching basketball games, eating takeout and being utterly useless and happy. Toni missed those moments a lot. Seeing Isco’s blurry face through security camera footage helped appease the longing.

Of course, it was nothing compared to seeing Isco in the flesh.

“You should see the other guy.” Isco flashed his teeth at Toni, the corners of his mouth pulling up in a bitter twist. Even if he were a complete stranger, Toni would still be able to tell the smile wasn’t genuine.

Toni stared at him for a beat too long before he reached towards the cabinet on top of the sink and pulled out an Avengers mug. 

“How are you?” he asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee. He kept one eye on the mug in his hand and the other on Isco by his side.

“Good. You?” Isco asked and he was lying. He was so clearly lying that it made Toni sick to the stomach. They had spent enough time together—they had been _friends_ —for Toni to tell he felt as awful as he looked.

What was the point of transferring if it was only going to make Isco miserable? Was working with Toni _that_ horrible? 

“Just peachy.” Toni’s reply came more sarcastic than he intended it to, making Isco look up at him in surprise. It was the first time he actually looked at Toni and didn’t just glance at him out the corner of his eye.

Toni stared back, daring Isco to say something.

He didn’t even realize how much he wanted Isco to call him out on his lie until the other man shook his head and said, “I should get back to work.”

Toni sighed. Right. It was all about work between them. Toni shouldn’t be surprised. When your job put your life on the line every day, it was pretty important to take it seriously. Of course, that thought didn’t stop him from being upset. Logic and heart didn’t often agree.

Isco was wearing a crisp gray suit that accentuated the build of his shoulders and the curve of his ass. Toni tried not to stare as he walked away.

By the time he got back to his desk, Isco had already disappeared. Why Toni even thought he would stay was a mystery. Things weren’t like they used to be, back when they still worked together and Isco often lingered by Toni’s desk under the pretense of needing to know what Toni was working on because, “It’s relevant to my job as well. _Duh_.”

Toni’s day was spent working on Agente Catorce’s equipment. Most of it was in good state, so there wasn’t much for him to fix. Catorce wasn’t like Isco, who had a frightening tendency to make everything he touched explode.

Toni blamed the fact that he compared everything Agente Catorce did to Isco on the fact that he had worked with Isco for the longest, and it made sense that Toni was still used to their work pace. 

At around seven, Toni was called into Mr. Ancelotti’s office.

“I have a new assignment for you. It’s in Germany.” Mr. Ancelotti handed him a file.

“Isn’t there someone else? Agente Catorce just got back from a week long mission,” Toni said. It was part of his duty to look after his agent, which sometimes included telling their superior to back off.

“Don’t worry, you won’t be working with Agente Catorce this time,” Mr. Ancelotti replied, raising Toni’s curiosity.

He opened the case file Mr. Ancelotti had given him and skimmed its contents. When he discovered who he would be working with, it felt like being stabbed in the chest.

“I don’t think I’m the right person for this mission.”

Mr. Ancelotti gave him a scrutinizing look.

“Mr. Kroos, I don’t know what happened between you and Agente Vientetrés and I haven’t tried to find out either because I don’t think it’s relevant to my interest,” he said. “But you are both professionals, and you are the right people for this job. Agente Vientetrés has been working this case for six months now and I need someone who speaks German and who I can trust. I’m sure you’ll both do the correct thing and put your divergences aside for three days while you work together.”

“Has Agente Vientetrés already accepted the assignment?” Toni asked. Mr. Ancelotti’s perpetually raised eyebrow climbed a little further into his forehead, but Toni refused to back down. He needed to know this.

“He has.”

“And he knows he’ll be working with me?”

A nod. “He was the one who requested a translator who he could trust. I told him there was only one person available.”

Toni tried not to read the implications behind those words. Isco didn’t know all the staff in their agency. Someone he could trust could be anyone who worked with him.

“All right. I’ll do it,” Toni said.

Mr. Ancelotti smiled. Toni got the impression he already knew he was going to say that.

“Thank you, Mr. Kroos.”

Toni read the file while he sat at his desk, then read it again to make sure he’d memorized everything. Afterwards he burned it because that was what they did with all printed information. It wasn’t, in Toni’s opinion, the best system for disposal of information, but it did the job.

He packed all he thought they needed for this mission, which ranged from everything to grenades shaped as lighters to a wristwatch that could read internal coding on electronic systems. He also took the sunglasses he had been working on that day. They were still in conceptual stages and would be a fun little something to work on during the plane.

Before he left the headquarters, he stopped by the recreation room, making a cup of coffee that he then took to James.

“Oh my god, have I told you ‘I love you’ recently?” James asked as he took the cup and breathed it in. He moaned in pleasure after making half its contents disappear, which made Toni cringe.

“You’ve never told me you love me,” Toni replied, quietly adding to himself, “and thank god for that.”

Apparently, he wasn’t quiet enough because James still heard him and choked on his coffee when he tried to laugh.

“Never change,” he said as he wiped away a few stray tears. Toni shrugged.

“Wasn’t planning to. Do you need anything from me?”

James would be working as their tech while he and Isco were in Germany. They wouldn’t require much help, but it was good knowing there was someone back at base looking out for them.

“I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking you that, and no, I’m good. You?”

“I have everything,” Toni said. He had never been good at modesty and he knew it. James didn’t seem to mind.

“Well then, you know how it is. You can call me or beep me if you wanna reach me. If you wanna page me, it's okay. I just can't wait until I hear my cell phone ring, doesn't matter if it's day or night.”

James smiled at him. Toni squinted.

“Is that the Kim Possible theme song?” 

James’ smile grew wider.

“Doesn't matter where, doesn’t matter when. I will be there for you ‘till the very end. Danger or trouble, I’m there on the double. You know that you always can call, James Rodríguez.” James ended his little X-Factor moment with a high note that raised the attention of everyone in the room, something he seemed to be quite proud of.

Toni nodded as he came to a decision. 

He took away James’ coffee.

“Go home, you’ve had too much caffeine.”

“Hey—” James started to protest and reach for his cup, but Toni was faster. A full night’s rest truly helped a man. He stalked off towards the exit without a glance back.

“Go home, Rodríguez.”

He figured his advice was meaningless. He knew it would be if anyone else gave it to him and they had, many times. The only way to get Toni to leave when he had work to do was by pulling the plug—literally pulling the energy cord from his computer—and then kicking him out of his chair.

Toni’s luck was that there was only one person in their office who had the guts to do that and he and Toni hadn’t interacted properly in six months. This was all going to change tomorrow.

Oh, how fun.

Their plane left for Frankfurt at seven in the morning. Toni arrived an hour early, giving him enough time to get to the gate five minutes before it opened. As always, Isco was five minutes late. He claimed there was no point in being early since there was always at least one asshole thirty minutes late. While this was true, Toni knew from personal experience that Isco was the opposite of a morning person and that he used the snooze button on his alarm clock far too liberally. Around that point in the discussion, Isco would wave him off and mutter something about semantics and Toni would smile, knowing Isco couldn’t see him through his earpiece.

“Hello,” Toni said as Isco dropped onto the plane seat next to him.

“Hey,” Isco replied. He opened the buttons on his suit and stretched his muscles, pulling every fiber and bone to the limit before he relaxed. Toni admired the way Isco managed to make everything, even stretching, appear dignified.

“Your black eye looks better,” Toni commented. It wasn’t a great ice breaker, but it said enough about their relationship that they needed icebreakers for Toni not to linger on the awkwardness for too long.

“Thanks. You look better too,” Isco glanced at him. “You should sleep more. Helps with the bag under your eyes and stops the whole dead on the inside vibe you have going on sometimes.”

Toni laughed. “You have such a way with words,” he said, making Isco chuckle. 

Talking like this, it was as if nothing had changed. It made Toni further aware of just how much he missed Isco.

“They train us in this. There’s a whole program on how to read people and the best way to flatter different personality types.”

“I’m sure you aced it.” Toni grinned. They both knew how charming Isco could be. Toni knew it maybe better than the man himself.

“I did.” Isco grinned back before he shook his head and changed the subject. “How much do you know about the job?”

“Just the basics. You’ll have to fill me in on anything else you think is necessary I know.”

“We’ll go over everything after we land.” Isco leaned back in his chair and took off his shoes. He let the conversation drop, a silence that lasted five minutes before it ate up Toni.

“Are you okay with all this? Working with me?” he asked. He had to know. After everything that happened between them, and Isco leaving without explanation, he had to know where they stood. 

Isco shrugged, trying for casual, but the miniature frown in his face betrayed him. “You’re the best person for the job.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m the only person for the job.”

“If that’s the case, then why are we arguing about this?” 

Toni stared at Isco with his mouth hanging open, flabbergast by Isco’s explosive reply. After a while, he closed his mouth and looked away. Isco didn’t like working with him. It was simple and obvious. How could Toni have forgotten that?

“It’s just one assignment. After this I promise we’ll never have to work together again,” Toni said.

It didn’t matter that he was unable to keep the disappointment from his voice. Of all the people to call him out on it, Isco was currently last on the list.

Their plane touched down in Frankfurt two and a half hours later and they were on a taxi on their way to their hotel by ten. This week Toni was Manuel, a freelance translator, and Isco was Victor, the owner of ten offshore accounts with no strings attached. They didn’t talk during the taxi ride, but as soon as they were in their hotel room, Toni started asking questions.

“Who are we meeting?” he pulled out a laptop from his bag and handed it to Isco so that he could write down anything he thought was essential.

“Three people. I know one is a German guy, hasn’t been in the business for long. His name is ter Stegen. The other is French and is in at least five different watch lists. 

“Jérémy Mathieu?” Toni asked, looking at the profile Isco had pulled up. “I think Benzema knows him.”

“Benzema knows everyone. It’s ridiculous. He’s like an endless list of sketchy contacts. Anyway, besides those two, we also X,” Isco finished, sighing.

“X?” Toni asked. A single letter wasn’t a lot to go from.

“Yeah, I think he’s from South America, but I wouldn’t put any money on it. I have intel that says he knew Piqué and his wife. I’m hoping we can get something out of them about what happened with that assignment.”

Toni took a step back. That assignment was the last time they worked together, which resulted in Toni being kidnapped and Isco taking down everyone in his path before they got any answers out of them.

Toni had no idea Isco was still working that case. Last he heard, all their leads had run cold and the whole thing was archived.

“And the job itself?” Toni asked.

“We go in, give them the accounts and in return they give us ten million euros. Then we leave, give everything we have to the German police and let them do the rest.”

It wasn’t their usual way of doing things, but Toni figured the fact that he was there put a damper on their plans. Toni didn’t comment on how it sounded like a simple job. He had learned his lesson well on that one.

He spent the rest of the day working with Isco, trying to get more information and checking their equipment. They would be meeting the clients tomorrow for brunch.Toni couldn’t recall if there had ever been an occasion in his life where he had had brunch. He doubted it.

They went to bed early, around ten in the evening. They didn’t talk as they slipped into their pajamas and the whole thing was so awkward and unlike them. There were moments when he was with Isco where it felt like they had gone back to the old times, and then where moments like this one, where everything was as uncomfortable as a wet sweater clinging to his body.

Toni waited for Isco to brush his teeth first. He looked out the window and admired the beautiful view. Were the circumstances different, he would have loved a chance to explore the city. Maybe he could find some time later. Before he washed his teeth, Toni shaved his jawline. He then examined himself in the mirror as he made sure that the cut was clean and neat.

By the time he got back to the bedroom, Isco was already asleep.

“You are an insufferable prick, Isco,” Toni whispered into the darkness of their room, glad that Isco couldn’t hear him.

Before coming here, he had thought that maybe, they could maybe fix whatever was wrong between them and make their relationship go back to how it used to be.

He had obviously thought wrong.

Toni slipped into bed and watched Isco’s body. He slept very still. Restrained. There was a gun on his bedside table and Toni hadn’t seen him take off the knife strapped above his ankle while he got dressed for bed.

They hadn’t even watched any television before they turned off the lights.

Toni sighed. The sooner they returned to Madrid, the better. After this mission, he was going to use up all the vacation days he had accidentally accumulated and go somewhere warm and sunny and as far away from Europe as possible. After that, he would consider transferring to an area that involved more creative focus and fewer chances of running into Isco, as rare as those already were.

Things would be easier then, which wasn’t a difficult feat.

Anything would be easier than this.


	3. ashes

Toni slept in intervals, and for the first time since he had been kidnapped six months ago, he dreamt of blood and dead faces with eyes followed him everywhere he went. He found himself covered in a thin layer of sweat every time he woke up, each time more disgruntled than before the one before.

He was no more rested than he had been the night before when he woke up at sunrise to the bale of Isco's alarm clock.

Toni responded to the noise like any normal human being would. He groaned, rolled into a corner of the bed and hid his head beneath two giant pillows. He heard Isco get up and turn off the music from hell, but his sigh of relief was cut off when Isco pulled Toni's pillows from his hands.

"Rise and shine," he said, sounding far too cheerful for the early hour.

Toni blinked, slowly adjusting to the light. He squinted at Isco. "Since when are you a morning person?" he asked.

"I'm not, but we've got a job to do." Isco shrugged. When Toni gave no inclination of being in the mood to move, he sighed and walked to the bathroom. "Five minutes and then we go over the plan and get ready."

Toni groaned in reply. It was no use going back to sleep now, so he used the five minutes to stretch and send James a quick text. Hopefully, the mission would run smoothly and they wouldn't need James’ help with anything, but in any case, Toni had been on the other side of the line enough times to know what a quick check-in meant.

Isco came out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later, just as Toni was getting used to the warmth of his bed again. He was naked save for a tiny white towel covering his hips. Droplets of water ran down his muscled chest, collecting at his navel. His hair was still wet, pushed back against his skull and giving him an effortlessly stylish look Toni could only dream of achieving, but it was his eyelashes that Toni noticed. Tiny drops of water hanged off them and made his eyes seem bigger than life.

Toni had never been a poetry fan, but if he were, he would write about how easy it was to get lost in Isco’s eyes. Isco didn't look like a Greek god, bigger than life and forbidden to admire. He looked like an ancient warrior, made of flesh and bone and hard-won strength.

He looked gorgeous.

Toni stared. He couldn't not stare.

Isco stared back. Eventually, it was he who broke eye contact by looking away and moving to his side of the room so he could get dressed. Toni took a few calming breaths and waited until he could get up without embarrassing himself.

While he was in the shower, he thought of algebra equations, heat satellites and a new propulsion system for their cars. He did not think of Isco. He wouldn't dare.

When he got back to the bedroom, room service was already waiting for them. Isco got toast with orange juice for himself and pancakes with banana and blueberries—Toni's favorite—for Toni. They ate while discussing the plan. Toni mostly listened, occasionally talking when he had something helpful to offer.

Isco was the dealer, so he would be the doing all the talking while Toni translated what he said. Ter Stegen and Mathieu, as far as they knew, were equals, although it was anyone's guess how much German the french man spoke. They didn't know what X's role would be.

Earpieces were too obvious and seemed unnecessary, so they skipped on those and told James they would call if they needed him. Isco hid a small arsenal of weaponry on his body while Toni limited himself to a small ankle gun he'd only ever used against practice dummies. He wore a pair of glasses of his own design with a built-in camera and microphone. They were extremely light-weight and looked like any other pair of glasses. Toni was quite proud of them. Google Glass could go suck it.

The cab they took to the meeting place arrived, purposely, ten minutes later than the agreed time.

"I'm a Spanish businessman. They would be suspicious if I showed up on time," Isco told him.

"You're a Spanish businessman doing business in Germany with a German, I doubt they'll be impressed by your tardiness.”

"It's not about impressing them. It's about being what they expect me to be," Isco explained.

Toni chanced a quick glance at Isco's profile. He didn’t get the logic of being rude just because people expected you to be rude. Maybe that was one of the reasons why he and Isco no longer worked together.

Toni nodded and pretended to understand what Isco meant anyway.

Brunch was at a small café in Eckenheim. Toni wasn't surprised when he saw the people they were meeting were already there. Nor was he surprised when a waiter led them to an even smaller room at the back, which would given them some privacy. He was, however, a little surprised to be meeting four men instead of three.

He had to stop himself from glancing at Isco and letting his emotions show, knowing it would look too obvious if he did. Since this was a business meeting, they weren't supposed to know anything about the people they were dealing with, much less how many of them there would be. The numerical disadvantage sat wrong with Toni anyhow. Isco, he knew, probably wasn't even bothered. He had always been better at rolling with the punches than Toni.

The fourth man only stayed in the room during the time it took them to be seated. He was skinny, good-looking and far younger than anyone in this business should be.

"Good morning, I'm Marc-André. Did you find this place with ease? It's a bit out of the way, but the food is delicious." The German gave Toni his hand to shake. He was tall and broad-shouldered and he carried himself with a sort of kingly confidence. The smile he gave Toni was wide and friendly, his words even more so.

Toni made sure his own smile was reserved and self-assured. While he was a confident person by nature, people like ter Stegen made him feel lacking.

"Manuel Hinger. This is Mr. Mendoza," he said, taking a step back so that Isco could come forward.

Ter Stegen flashed Isco a quick smile before he moved to introduce the rest of his group. "Jérémy Mathieu, my associate," the french man gave them a wave. "And the grumpy man by the corner is our bodyguard," he said, prompting a loud laugh from Mathieu and a scoff from the man himself.

It was some kind of private joke, that much was easy to tell. The man by the corner was X, his spiked hairstyle making him easy to recognize. He was about one meter and a half, give or take a few centimeters, and he was already well past his prime. Unless he was secretly a martial arts wizard, he wasn't anyone's bodyguard.

Toni looked at Isco, unsure of whether or not he should translate ter Stegen’s comment. Isco frowned at him, making Toni’s decision for him. Toni leaned until he could whisper in Isco’s ear, feeling awkward and out of place because of the sudden proximity. Isco was as nonplussed as ever, of course. He nodded in reply, then went back to staring at Mathieu and ter Stegen.

“Will you be translating everything then?” ter Stegen asked.

“Well, yes,” Toni said, slowly, unsure if he had missed some kind of pre-meeting memo. “That is my job.”

“All right. Tell your boss the _currywurst_ here is amazing. I’ve already ordered the drinks while we waited, hope the two of you don’t mind.” Ter Stegen flashed Toni a warm smile.

Toni leaned towards Isco again. This time Isco put a hand on the back of Toni’s chair, giving him more space to lean into. It made Toni feel less awkward, but he still couldn’t fully relax, not when he knew all the eyes in the room were on him.

“You can order whatever for me,” Isco told him. Toni blinked before he shook his head as if to shake off his astonishment.

“The _currywurst_ for both of us would be great,” Toni told ter Stegen, who glanced at X, who, in turn, sighed and walked to the door to call a waitress who could take down their orders.

“What part of Germany are you from then?” ter Stegen asked after the waitress had left.

“Greifswald,” Toni replied. He debated for half a second on whether it’d be rude if he didn’t replicate the question, good manners winning in the end. “And you?”

“Mönchengladbach. I’ve never been to Greifswald, but I would love to visit one day,” ter Stegen said. Toni wasn’t sure if he was imagining things or not, but he had seen enough people flirt to hear a ‘with you _’_ at the end there.

From ter Stegen’s left, Mathieu, who had previously been engrossed in his phone, snorted. Toni wondered how much German he knew, or if ter Stegen was just that obvious.

“It’s quite pretty,” said Toni, at loss for anything relevant to add. 

“What about you? Have you ever been to Mönchengladbach?” he asked. Toni stared at the man in mild horror. The purpose of this meeting was suddenly very unclear.

“No, never had the chance.”

“Tell me if you like the _currywurst_ here and I’ll tell you whether you would my city. The recipe comes from a Mönchengladbach original.” Ter Stegen flashed him another million watts smile, which Toni felt compelled to reciprocate. He was about to reply to ter Stegen’s comment when Isco let out a loud, dry cough, raising everyone’s attention.

It was at this point that Toni noticed the hand on the back of his chair had climbed higher and moved to Toni’s neck.

“Ask them if they have the money,” Isco told him.

Toni turned to ter Stegen, who was already a step ahead of them. “The _dinero_? Of course,” he gave Mathieu a quick tap on the arm. The frenchman pulled a briefcase from under the table and snapped it open, showing them a laptop inside. “It’s ready to be wired at any moment. I take it you have the information for the accounts?”

Toni translated er Stegen’s question. In reply, Isco reached into the inside of his jacket and pulled out the corner a brown envelope, which he then slid it back into its pocket.

“Old school, I like it.” Ter Stegen’s eyes were on Isco, but his body was angled towards Toni and it didn’t take long for the man’s attention to shift again. “But we need to eat first. No need to be rushing things.”

This time, Toni didn’t reciprocate his smile. 

“He wants us to eat first,” he told Isco. The hand on his neck gripped the skin tighter. Toni had to resist leaning into the touch.

“Fine,” Isco murmured. Toni glanced at him. There was a wrinkle between his eyebrows, a downwards curve to his lips. Beneath the table, away from prying eyes, Toni laid a hand on Isco’s thigh. They couldn’t afford to have Isco antagonize their clients just because they were more friendly than expected.

The waitress from earlier arrived with their food just as Isco gave his reply, and then it was another minute of distributing the plates before ter Stegen asked, “So, where will you be going after this meeting?”

“I don’t know yet. Depends on what Mr. Mendoza wants.”

“Oh?” Ter Stegen lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “I thought this was more of a one time thing for you.”

Toni, startled to be caught in his lie, tried for a careful shrug. “I go where I’m needed.”

“That’s good to hear,” ter Stegen said, with a grin that could be described as little other than lewd.

By Toni’s side, Isco huffed, sounding deeply unimpressed. Disgust rolled off him in waves strong enough that Toni swore he could feel them lap against his skin.

The noise made ter Stegen turn his head towards Isco and then the two men had some weird, alpha male staring match. Ter Stegen’s eyes were sharper than they had been when he was looking at Toni. His grin was forced. Isco continued to look unimpressed.

Everyone else was caught in an awkward limbo between them, but while Toni looked like he was going to die of embarrassment soon, Mathieu and X didn’t look all that bothered. Maybe this was a regular occurrence for them? If so, for the love of God, wasn’t there something they could do? Toni was alone in figuring out how to react and to say he was struggling didn’t quite cover it.

He grabbed a muffin from a plate on the table and started to eat it in silence, hoping everyone else would follow his example and they could use food to break the tension.

His plan worked, sort of. Mathieu dropped his phone and reached for a plate of scrambled eggs. X didn’t move an inch, but Toni suspected he wasn’t the type who did brunch. Ter Stegen’s smile reached astronomically fake proportions before the man relaxed and looked away. Isco grabbed a piece of toast with his free hand and left the other on Toni’s shoulder.

Toni continued to eat his muffin. No one touched the _currywurst_.

“Tell me if you ever decide you want to work with other people,” ter Stegen told Toni. The man was like a dog with a bone.

“Sure,” Toni replied, trying for a smile. Isco’s grip on his shoulder grew tighter and Toni had to force himself not to react. This could be useful for them. He could ask ter Stegen for more information, since it didn’t seem likely they were going to get anything out of X.

Toni was figuring out a subtle way to ask Ter Stegen if he had ever been to Spain when the lookout guy they had by the door came barging into the room.

“Xavi, they’re the guys! They’re the ones who killed Piqué and Leo,” he yelled, speaking in Spanish to X, who immediately raised himself up from his slouch.

“Are you sure?” asked X. Toni wasn’t good with accents, but he’d bet this man was from Catalunya. The pieces were beginning to slot together and the puzzle did not bore well from them.

“What’s going on?” ter Stegen asked, also in Spanish. Goddammit, did everyone speak Spanish? Why hadn’t they known about this?

“I found the video. It’s them.” The man pointed a shaky finger at them. “They killed Shaki.”

Isco stood up and with the hand on Toni’s shoulder, forced Toni to move until he was behind Isco’s body and out of the line of fire. “Right, I think we should be leaving,” he said.

“You are not going anywhere,” X bit out.

Toni’s hand began to crawl to the gun hidden inside his jacket. He’d never used it before and there was a large chance he would hurt himself with it instead of hurting someone else, but in an outnumbered match they needed all the help available.

A ghost smile grazed Isco’s lips. “Let’s see about that.”

That was the last thing all of them heard before a flash grenade was set off right in the center of the room.

The disorientation from losing one’s senses was staggering. A strong pair of hands shoved Toni towards the door. The force made him stumble and almost fall on his ass, but then the same pair of hands gripped him by the waist and pulled him up. Even though he couldn’t hear or see anything, Toni still knew that was Isco trying to guide him to safety. He walked backwards, step by step, until he felt his back hit a wall. 

Two seconds later, he was pulled forward and ended up falling onto Isco when the wall behind him disappeared.

Light and noise trickled in as they filled his senses, returning them to their rightful state. Someone shouted, “Come on,” next to his ear. Toni could only nod numbly in reply.

Together, he and Isco stumbled through the café, making customers flurry away from them. Toni avoided all the shapes that looked like they could hurt him if he bumped against them. The exit was a mere meter away when a heavy force ran into them and sent them sprawling to the floor.

Next, Toni was, quite literally, kicked out of the way with a foot to the stomach that had him gasping for air. When he looked up, he saw Isco standing above him and looking downright murderous as he fought the lookout guy from before.

His movements were slow and tired. They lacked the fluidity Toni had grown to associate with Isco. Without his usual grace, the amount of blows Isco failed to block by far outweighed the ones he stopped. The scene in front of him urged Toni to sit up. Isco wouldn’t last long in a hand-to-hand combat like this. His strength was in his dexterity, and without it he didn’t stand much of a chance.

Strapped to Toni’s waist was his gun. Toni pulled it from the holster by the grip at the same time as the lookout guy grabbed Isco’s head and slammed it on a table. He had a clear shot of the look out guy’s back when the guy put Isco on a headlock. 

Toni could hear Isco’s panicked breaths above the commotion all around them. He had to shoot soon or Isco would suffocate.

Toni blinked. His fingers twitched. He’d never shot a person before.

He found he couldn’t shoot one now either.

But he could take one steady step, raise his arm high above his head and knock out the lookout guy with a swift punch he soon wouldn’t forget. It didn’t take long for Isco to free himself from lookout guy’s slumped body.

“Thanks,” Isco wheezed. He was panting heavily, his cheeks a deep pink that ran all the way down his neck.

“Don’t mention it.” Toni was breathing as hard as Isco even though all he’d done was hit a guy in the head.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

He nodded. “Good plan.”

Toni got his phone out of his pocket and threw away his glasses, which had been broken when he fell. James picked up on the first ring.

“You saw all that?” Toni asked.

“I did, and I can tell you that ter Stegen and his buddies are heading in your direction as we speak. There is a taxi fifty meters ahead to your right. You should run.”

Toni swallowed.

“We need to go,” he told Isco. He didn’t wait for a reply before he grabbed him by the arm and started to run. Isco was at his side with every step, so Toni concentrated all his efforts on not tripping over his own two feet and ignored the raised voices behind them. He rattled the cab driver an address James had just texted him after getting in.

“Where’s that?” Isco asked.

“Safe house,” Toni whispered. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, giving himself a moment to regroup his thoughts. They were fine. The mission was a bust. It wasn’t Toni’s fault. They were _fine_.

Toni looked at Isco. His face was still red from the exertion, but there was a different stain of red there as well now.

“You have blood on your face. Why do you have blood on your face?”

“Oh, that,” Isco said, as casual as can be. He looked down at his chest. Toni’s eyes tracked the movement. 

“Fuck,” Toni cursed and reached for Isco. “What happened?”

“I’m fine. It’s just a little stab wound,” Isco said, hissing in pain at the end of the sentence. It said enough about how not little the stab was that he didn’t have the strength to push Toni’s prying hands off him.

“Just a little—“ Toni huffed as he took off his jacket. “There is no such thing as a little stab wound. You have a hole in your body from where a knife was. You need to go to a hospital,” he insisted. 

He turned to the driver, but his attention was pulled back to Isco again when the man grabbed his wrist and forced Toni to look at him.

“If we go to a hospital they willfind us and then you can rest assured we’ll be dealing with wounds a lot bigger than this. We’ll go to the safe house. It’s fine, Toni. I’m fine.”

Through the rearview mirror, the taxi driver’s eyes flew from Isco to Toni and then back again. Everything in Toni told him to ignore the rules. As the trained agent, Isco was in charge and Toni was meant to follow his orders, but Isco was also an idiot who needed medical help and needed it _now_.

“Please,” Isco whispered. “Just take me to the safe house.”

Toni sighed. There were days where he despised his job with everything in him. This was one of them.

“Take us to the address I gave you,” Toni told the driver, who gave him a shaky nod in reply. Toni grabbed his phone for a second time. “Call me if anything changes. I’ll keep you updated on our status.”

“Will do. Good luck,” said James before hanging up.

Toni spent the rest of the drive applying pressure on Isco’s wound while Isco stared out the window. When they arrived at their destination, he threw two green bills at the cab driver before he helped Isco climb out. They hadn’t given the driver their real address in case someone got to him later, which meant they had two blocks to walk before they reached the safe house.

Toni carried most of Isco’s weight as they walked. He pulled Isco’s body tight against him and in return, Isco hid his face in Toni’s neck.

“We’re a couple. You’re drunk and I’m taking you home,” Toni whispered. 

Isco huffed a short laugh, making Toni shiver. “It’s eleven in the morning.”

“You’re in Germany. Weirder things have happened.”

The conversation was a simple distraction, but it did its job. Toni was able to judge Isco’s pain level based on his reactions while giving Isco something besides the pain to focus on.

When they reached the safe house—a one-bedroom apartment with a view of Rebstockpark—Toni guided Isco towards the couch, gently dropping him there before he went on the search for a medical kit. He found it in the kitchen, military grade, containing everything he needed.

Never mind that Toni was an engineer and not a doctor, and he could just as likely kill Isco instead of helping him.

“If I kill you—“ Toni said as he walked into the living room.

“You are not going to kill me—“

“If I kill you,” Toni barged on, louder than before. He dropped the kit on the floor and sat next to Isco. “I’m going to say it was your fault at your funeral.”

Isco laughed, sounding closer to misery than amusement, then hissed in pain because of the sudden movement of his chest. “You won’t kill me,” he insisted.

Toni shook his head, but didn’t try to argue further. He helped Isco take off his shirt, something that would otherwise transpire as an intimate moment were it not for all the blood.

Shirt discarded, he cleaned the wound with water and antiseptic wipes. Isco hissed every now and then, but didn’t say anything. Isco’s judgement from earlier had been right. As far as stab wounds went, this one was pretty small. The bleeding had already stopped and he would only need a couple of stitches. 

Toni refused to share this piece of information with the other man.

“Did you know that was going to happen?” he asked in a casual tone as he searched for local anesthesia and a tetanus shot in the med kit.

“That they were going to recognize us? No, of course not. I knew X knew Piqué and his wife, but I thought they were just business acquaintances,” Isco flinched when Toni came near him with the needles. “Is that necessary?” he asked. Toni gave him a dead-eyed stare. “Right, yeah, of course.”

If Toni was maybe a little harsher than he had to be when giving him the anesthesia and the tetanus shot, Isco probably deserved it.

He dropped the empty vials in the kit before he grabbed a needle and some medical grade thread. “We didn’t even get any useful information in the end,” he said.

“That probably wouldn’t have happened anyway since that entire meal consisted of you flirting with ter Stegen,” Isco replied.

Toni froze. He had, up until that point, done his best to keep calm and not let anger cloud his judgement. He had kept his cool during the meeting. He had done all Isco asked, and this was what he got in return?

Toni looked up, but Isco didn’t meet his gaze.

The next breath Toni took was long, pacifying and measured. It did nothing to calm him down.

“ _Excuse me?_ I was not flirting with him. I was being polite and trying to actually talk to him, which I should probably remind you is what we were both supposed to be doing. Instead, you spent the whole time shooting everyone dirty looks and acting like an ass.”

Isco gasped. “I was not being an ass. He was the one slobbering all over your dick.”

Toni ignored that sparkling mental image. He gave Isco a withering look and put some space between them before he did something stupid like stabbing Isco with the needle.

“Why do you even care? If anything, ter Stegen flirting with me was a good thing. It would have made it easier to get information off him.”

“It would have, but that is not something for you to do. You weren’t trained at extracting information. Trying to flirt with him would have made you a liability.”

Toni flinched. It was true. He wasn’t like Isco. He didn’t have any of his training or skills, but he had also never thought of himself as a _liability_.

“I’m sorry then. I didn’t think of it that way.” Toni shook his head. “Look, I know you don’t like working with me because you think I’m shit at this and unprofessional, but I’m not completely useless. I wouldn’t have ruined the mission for us, if that is what you’re suggesting.”

Isco didn’t reply. He stared at Toni, who in turn stared at his hands. It was always disconcerting to have Isco’s undivided attention on him. Toni decided to use the silence productively and went back to giving Isco’s wound a few necessary stitches.

Just as he was finishing, Isco said, “I don’t think you’re useless.”

Toni snorted. “Sure you don’t. And I’m also sure the reason you asked to be reassigned to money laundering and then proceeded to avoid me like the plague for six months had nothing to do with me fucking up during the last job, right?”

“That wasn’t your fault. I told you, that mission was rigged from the start.”

“Then if it wasn’t my fault, why did you leave?” Toni’s voice raised with each word until he was yelling, frustrated to the point of tearing his hair out and so very tired. He cut off the extra thread from Isco’s stitches and picked up some bandages.

“Because you were kidnapped.”

“I thought you said—“ 

“Because you were kidnapped while I was supposed to be watching over you. Because I’m a highly trained agent, but I can’t do my job right while you’re there, Toni. When you’re by my side, you become everything I think about. I stop giving a fuck about the mission, and in the process I compromise our safety.” Isco took a stuttering breath. “When you’re there, you being safe is more important to me than doing my job, which is really fucked up considering this job is my entire life. And if that wasn’t enough, as if me spending every waking minute watching over you like a stupid hawk wasn’t enough, I still couldn’t protect you.”

Toni pressed a bandage against Isco’s skin and leaned back in his seat. He stared at Isco until he had to blink and look away.

He had a hard time processing Isco’s confession. Six months had passed since they last talked properly. Six months spent examining himself, his skills and their relationship from every possible angle. Six months in which he blamed himself for what happened and couldn’t let go, no matter how much he tried to forget the past.

Six months and all it took was one confession to make them irrelevant.

“You were worried? About me?”

Isco let out a tired laugh. “You’re all I can think about and I still fuck up every time. It’s quite the feat if you think about it.”

Toni picked up Isco’s wrist. He squeezed it between his fingers, then pulled until Isco’s body faced him. “You could have said that in the first place. I would have understood.”

“I tried, but I could never find the right words or the right time. After you were kidnapped, I figured it’d just be easier if we stopped working together. I thought it would make me care less.”

Isco turned his hand around. They would technically be holding hands if one of them were to just lock their fingers.

“Did it?” 

“I nearly beat in ter Stegen’s face because he tried to flirt with you, so I’d say no, it didn’t work.” Isco sounded so disappointed in himself, like he was angry that he couldn’t control his own feelings. Toni knew what that was like.

“Come back to working with me,” said Toni, immediately adding, “I won’t go on any missions with you. I won’t make you worry or act stupid. Just— come back, please. You aren’t the only one who didn’t stop caring. These past six months have been _awful_.”

That got a genuine laugh out of Isco, who looked at Toni in astonishment before his eyes were filled with mirth. “They have, haven’t they?”

Toni nodded a little bit too frantically, too excited to stop himself. “I’m too used to working with you to work with anyone else. You’ve spoiled me.”

“Every time I visited my new tech’s office and he didn’t have some new, weird piece of technology he wanted me to try I felt disappointed.”

“I didn’t make something new for you all the time.”

Isco gave him a mildly unimpressed look.

“All right, most of the time. I had something for you most of the time,” Toni corrected, making Isco laugh. “You’ll come back then?” he asked, and there was nothing he could do to stop himself from sounding so hopeful.

“Yeah, sure. Ancelotti is going to think I’m a weirdo changing departments back and forth like this, but we have a case to finish, don’t we?” Isco asked, grinning from ear to ear.

Toni smiled. “We do.”

Toni didn’t mean to lean in. It wasn’t a conscious thought in his mind or something he had to talk himself into doing. He was just there, looking at Isco, who was smiling at him for the first time in six months, and it only made sense for Toni to want to get closer. Isco didn’t move away. If anything, he leaned closer as well. The tips of their noses brushed. A minuscule spark of worry went off in the back of Toni’s brain, but it was obscured by all the white noise currently filling his skull.

When their lips touched, it was a tentative movement. They were both waiting. Waiting for the other to snap out of his respective trance. Waiting for something to blow up. Waiting for the fall that they thought was inevitable.

Nothing came.

Toni surged forward.

He grabbed Isco by the back of the neck and the small of his back, pulling the other man against him until Toni was lying on the pillows and Isco was on top of him. Toni opened his mouth for Isco’s tongue to explore and all he could think was that he wanted more. He wanted everything.

He breathed in all the little noises Isco made like they were oxygen. He revealed in each gasp and moan like they were sacred. In return, he did the human equivalent of purring when Isco took him by the hair and didn’t even bother to feel embarrassed.

“I always knew you’d have a thing for people pulling your hair,” Isco said. He sounded both awed and smug.

“Thought about it often?” Toni asked, leaning up on his elbows to chase after Isco’s mouth.

“You have no fucking idea,” Isco replied between kisses and bites. Toni didn’t, but he knew he would love to find out.

It didn’t take long for hands to reach zippers as they tried to open their pants. Well, as Toni tried to open their pants. Isco had yet to let go of Toni’s hair, which in turn made said process of pulling down their pants rather arduous. Toni had just gotten his hand inside Isco’s boxers, enough of a victory for him, when he realized the situation they were in and froze, making a small noise of discontentment.

“What? What’s happening? Why did you stop?” Isco asked. He sounded so wrecked already, nothing but a pile of want and lust. It was Toni’s turn to look smug before he got a grip on himself.

He pulled out his hand from Isco’s pants, ignored the noise of protest he got in return and tapped Isco’s bandage above his hip. “This isn’t exactly the best time for us to be doing this.”

“That’s just—“

“If you say ‘that’s just a little stab wound’, you’re sleeping on the floor tonight.”

Isco pouted, a look that shouldn’t have looked half as adorable as it did considering he was a grown ass man and not a six-year-old girl. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Toni said, staring at a point above Isco’s shoulder.

“Why? Is it working in convincing you that we should have sex?” Isco asked.

“Yes,” Toni admitted, finding it surprisingly easy to admit the embarrassing truth to Isco. “But we’re not going to do it because you’re injured and we really need to go back to our hotel and get out of Germany. We can have sex later.”

That was Toni’s version of a confession. The casual ‘later’ at the end of the sentence, which implied that he wanted a later. He really, really wanted a later. 

Isco didn’t miss the implication of his words. He knocked their foreheads together, softly, then whispered, “Okay. Later then”

Toni nodded. He kissed Isco again. A tiny peck on the lips this time. “Later.”

With James’ help, they made their way back to their hotel and then to the airport without any unlucky encounters. Back at the headquarters, James was already piercing together more extensive profiles on Ter Stegen and his friends. Hopefully, they would be able to make better sense of everything that was going on then.

Isco would go after them. They didn’t need to talk about it for Toni to know this. Those men knew a lot more about them than they should. They would come back for them, and it was a ‘them’ for the first time instead of just ‘Isco’. The thought of having people who wanted to see him dead didn’t bother Toni all that much. He had known what he was signing up for when he joined the IAC, but he knew it would bother Isco and if Isco wanted to do something about it, then Toni would help.

When they got back to the headquarters, there was a letter on Toni’s desk.

_Agente Veintitrés has requested to work with you again. Agente Catorce has since been reassigned to another tech. I want a full report on what happened in Germany by the end of today._

_Best regards,_

_Carlo Ancelotti_

Isco must have sent the transfer request while they were on the plane home. Toni looked over at the man in question, who was pretending to be busy checking out all the new gadgets on Toni’s desk. Toni pocketed the letter and turned on his computer.

“So, X or Xavi or whatever he’s called. How much money you want to bet that he’s the head of their operation?” Toni asked.

Isco turned to him and grinned. “How much money you got?”

And just like that, Toni could breathe with ease again.

— — —

He was taking a break for a professional recuperative session, otherwise known as taking a nap in the break room, when he was shaken awake be a wild-eyed James.

“Toni, you need to come. Quickly,” James said. Not the most patient of men, he was already dragging Toni up while Toni tried to gather his wits.

“What’s happening?” Toni asked. He allowed James to lead him without any complaints. There weren’t many people who Toni would take orders from without thinking. His brother was one of them. His mother too, probably, although they hadn’t talked in a while now. Isco was definitely one of them. James, after months of working together, had become one of them as well.

“It’s Agente Veintitrés,” James said, and that was all that it took for Toni’s body to perform a full reboot and become wide awake. “They’re going to arrest him.”

“What? Why?” 

Isco was currently on a mission in Indonesia that was still in its early stages, which meant doing a lot of basic recon and trying local dishes. The latter wasn’t necessary, but Isco liked to send Toni pictures of disgusting food to make Toni feel queasy. There were other people from the IAC there with him, but Isco preferred to walk around on his own and talking to Toni, who was more than happy to chat with him.

They had returned to Madrid three months ago. Their relationship was still, in a lot of ways, new. Toni had yet to see Isco’s apartment, and he was beginning to think from all the time Isco spent at Toni’s place that he didn’t even own one. They were learning to adjust to each other as something more, as well as learning ways to keep their relationship a secret from everyone else.

In a lot of ways, however, everything was still the same. They still talked, joked around incessantly, and it was good. It was so good.

“He killed two people,” James said, not stopping to look at Toni, who frowned.

“No. He wouldn’t do that. He’s asleep right now, and he wouldn’t just kill people like that.”

“He would and he did. Or at least that’s what everyone believes,” James replied. It was around this time that Toni noticed James had led him to a closed off staircase in the back of the building.

Toni stopped walking.

“James, who did he kill?” Toni asked. James turned around and stared at Toni for a couple of seconds. He looked like he had swallowed a lemon.

“Agente Once and his tech.”

Toni took a step back. “He wouldn’t,” he swallowed. “Isco wouldn’t kill them. Why would he— He liked Agente Once,” and his tech, god, that meant Modrić. Isco loved Modrić. Everyone loved Modrić. “He wouldn’t kill them.”

“There are pictures. I don’t know if it’s him or not, but it looks like it is. Ancelotti has already sent people to arrest him and he’ll be coming after you next, which is why, if you have anything that needs done, you need to do it _now_ ,” James said and with that he opened the door to the staircase and gave Toni a laptop.

“James,” Toni started to say, cutting off mid-sentence. He had no clue what he wanted to say.

“There is a room near the basement with a reinforced steel door. Meanwhile, I’ll try to buy you some time. Now go,” James pushed him towards the staircase. 

Toni nodded. He took the stairs two at a time and turned on the laptop as he locked the door to the room James had mentioned. Setting up a secure connection took time, but Toni needed to make sure his next steps were privy to his eyes only.

The first thing he did was find the pictures.

James hadn’t lied. The man photographed looked like Isco. Hell, if Toni didn’t know any better, he would say it was Isco. He was the right height and build, had the same beard and wore a suit identical to one of the many Isco owned. Even the way he moved, with a slight crouch when doing stealth work, was the same. 

He couldn’t be Isco, though. Unless Isco knew something Toni didn’t and had needed to eliminate Agente Once and Modrić. Toni bit his lip.

It didn’t sound right. If Isco knew something, he would have told Toni before he acted. He wouldn’t just kill two people from the IAC in the middle of the night while they slept and then disappear.

That led Toni to the second part of what he needed to do: finding Isco.

Someone started beating on the door. “Mr. Kroos, please come out immediately or I’m afraid we’ll have to force you to come.”

That was Mr. Ancelotti. Toni ignored him.

All of Isco’s electronic devices were dead and gone. With more time, Toni would have been able to connect the dots and go through enough feeds to find him. Since Toni didn’t have that said time, he called one of the few phone numbers he had memorized, Isco’s landline. He’d never used it before, but now seemed a good a time as any.

“Isco, it’s me. I don’t know what happened, but I know you didn’t do it and that if you did do it, you had a good reason to do it. Ancelotti is about to arrest me, but he probably won’t keep me locked up forever.” Or at least Toni hoped he wouldn’t. “Don’t disappear off the face of the earth, okay? Whatever happened, we can fix it.”

“Mr. Kroos, back away from the door if you don’t want to be blown to pieces.”

“Shit,” Toni cursed, scurrying to the other side of the room. “I really need to go now, but I’m serious. I’ll help you, whatever way I can. And don’t worry about me or do anything stupid for my sake. I’ll be fine.”

Toni heard the little ‘beep beep’ of their bombs. They usually reserved those for big explosions, and not for opening locks. Toni crouched.

“I’ll be fine,” he whispered. Toni closed his eyes and felt his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest.

Everything after that looked a lot like nothing.


	4. wind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to post this chapter. Exam season is the worst. Not sure when the last chapter will be out, but I have a lot of free time now so hopefully soon. Thank you for sticking with me! I hope you everyone enjoys this chapter.

The first person that came to his cell was Mr. Ancelotti. He was dressed in his usual black slacks, with a simple cut and impeccably groomed. In contrast, Toni wore gray sweatpants, a white t-shirt, and no shoes or socks.

They had him locked in a small two-room cell, with a small bathroom and a main bedroom. It was a dull gray and barren, making Toni feel like he was under house arrest in a different, bleaker universe. Mr. Ancelotti grabbed the only chair in the room and placed it in front of Toni’s bed, forcing Toni to sit up and lean back against the wall to put more space between them. He knew doing so would make him look intimidated, but he’d rather not have a close-up of anyone’s pores if he could avoid it.

He had been trained in interrogation techniques. He had been trained in pretty much everything. He knew, theoretically, how to hold his silence and keep his cool. How much eye contact he should make and whether or not he should flinch when someone punched him. He knew what twitches and words he should be on the lookout for in the interrogator’s body and how to use that information in his advantage.

Now the question was whether or not he can put that knowledge to practice.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” was the first thing Mr. Ancelotti said.

“Believe it or not, that is not a very comforting thing to hear,” Toni replied. He grinned. Mr. Ancelotti’s left eyebrow twitched.

“I see Agente Vientetrés has been rubbing off on you.”

There was something dirty and decidedly inappropriate Toni could say in reply to that, but he chose to remain silent instead, shrugging to indicate he had nothing to add. Mr. Ancelotti knew about him and Isco. They had never admitted it or did anything to indicate they were together, but one didn’t get to the top of an international spies agency by not knowing something as simple as which employees were fucking.

Mr. Ancelotti knew. Toni hoped he wouldn’t use this information against them. He and Isco had been good employees. Loyal. They had done their jobs and they had done them right. Toni wanted to believe two years of servitude would be worth at least this small shred of respect for him.

Then again, Luka and Agente Once had been good employees too.

“What did he find out?” Mr. Ancelotti asked, already done with small talk.

“I don’t know.”

“Where has he gone?”

“I don’t know.”

“What is his next move?”

“I don’t know.”

Mr. Ancelotti laced his hands. His thumb rubbed the gold ring on his right index finger, making it spin around the finger. Toni focused on the movement for a second before he looked up and made eye contact again.

“Why did he do it?” 

Toni could hear the frustration in Mr. Ancelotti’s voice. It wasn’t a lot, but it was definitely there. This meeting wasn’t running the way he wanted it to. Toni’s blood ran thicker inside his veins. He wondered what his boss had expected when he came to his cell. Did he really think Toni would betray Isco that quickly?

“If there is a reason then I don’t know it, but I don’t think he did it,” Toni replied. He’d spent the past few days thinking about this and it was the only viable explanation. If Isco had a reason to kill Modric and Agente Once, he would have informed Toni first. He would have talked to them. He wouldn’t have just murdered two people point blank while they slept.

He licked his lips, trying to get some moisture back on them. His mouth was dry as a wick.

“There are pictures Mr. Kroos. From security cameras. I believe you have seen them as well,” Mr. Ancelotti said. He tried to sound patient, but it didn’t work all that well.

The sight wasn’t a favorable one. In the two years Toni had known him, Mr. Ancelotti had always been the perfect picture of tranquility.

“They’re fake. I don’t know how they did it, but they’re fake.”

“And who is the ‘they’ you speak of?” 

“I would love to tell you, but as you can see” —Toni spread his arms, encompassing the room he had been imprisoned in for the last week, devoid of anything but the bare essentials— “I don’t exactly have the means for that type of research at my disposal.”

Mr. Ancelotti smiled, although nothing about his demeanor said ‘amused’.

“There is other evidence. Fingerprints, footprints and even a voice recording.”

Toni knew he shouldn’t react to that. He knew, he knew, he _knew_ and still—

“A voice recording?” he asked, leaning forward for the first time since Ancelotti had stepped into the room.

“Yes. It was recorded as he was making his way out of Indonesia. I could show it to you, if, in return, you told me what it means,” Ancelotti said. Toni stared.

“What? Why?”

“The whole thing is gibberish.”

“And you think I can decipher it,” Toni concluded.

“If you would be so kind,” Mr. Ancelotti said.

“I could just lie to you, though. You have no reason to believe me. You haven’t, so far. Or otherwise you’d believe me when I tell you Isco didn’t murder anyone.”

Something invisible and indefinable in the room snapped.

It was Mr. Ancelotti’s patience.

“Mr. Kroos, I want you to look around you and evaluate your situation. You are in no position to barter, order or ask for anything. We have yet to prove you are related to the murders, but do not think for a second that we aren’t working to find out if and how you were involved. Your cooperation would mean a lot to us, and would maybe serve to prove your innocence.”

“I’m telling you the truth, he didn’t do it.” 

Mr. Ancelotti continued without hearing him. “Think about what is at stake. You stand a lot to lose if you continue to defend a man who is hiding halfway across the world, with little means to help himself and even fewer means to help _you_. Think also about how kind we have been to you so far because that kindness is not endless. Two good agents were killed. Agents who meant a lot to people here. I cannot guarantee that the next person who comes to see you will be as kind as me.”

Toni stared. He didn’t know what to say or what to do. He tried to think what would Isco do if their roles were reversed, but his mind was a blank sheet.

Mr. Ancelotti sighed. “I thought you would be smarter than this when I hired you,” he said as he made his departure, leaving Toni once again alone in an empty room.

Toni thought he would be smarter than this too.

— — —

Isco was on his knees the second Toni closed the door to the apartment.

“Jesus Christ, impatient much?” Toni asked, voice already hitching higher than his dignity would have wanted. His hands reached for Isco’s hair, stroking his scalp with the blunt edge of his nails. 

“Is that a complaint?” Isco asked, glancing at Toni with wide eyes, full of mischief and pretend innocence. Toni trembled. Those eyes would be the death of him. All of Isco would be the death of him, but his eyes would be the murder weapon and Toni the willing victim.

“No. Far from it.”

“Good,” Isco whispered before he pushed down Toni’s zipper with his _teeth_ and leaned in to suck Toni’s dick to the base in one single, fluid movement.

Toni’s head hit the wall with a loud smack, sending tiny bits of plaster falling onto the floor. Not that Toni cared or was aware of such meaningless things as head concussions. It was hard to care about anything when Isco was in front of him, beautiful as ever, sucking Toni’s dick like his life depended on it.

“This is not going to last,” Toni admitted, sounding like he was both drowning and reaching immortality at the same time. Isco kissed the head and licked around it, taking the rest with his hand. He kept at it for a couple more seconds, driving Toni further up the wall with each stroke, until he pulled back and got up on his feet.

“Not that the thought of you coming in my mouth isn’t lovely,” he said, for once not sarcastic, the murderous bastard, “but I’d love it if we came together during our first time.”

Toni’s body was melting. He grabbed Isco by the neck and pulled him in for a brutal kiss, full of teeth and tongue and bone-crushing heat. He took everything Isco had to give and gave back everything he had to offer. Toni thought himself a creature of the sky that had been falling for a long, long time and for the first time years, he could see the ground.

“Didn’t know you were such a romantic,” he replied, the biting edge in his words completely destroyed by how wrecked he sounded. 

Isco chuckled, completely non-plussed. “Didn’t know you were so bitchy,” he murmured against Toni’s neck as he sunk his teeth onto the soft flesh there. Toni moaned quite loudly, and prayed to the skies his neighbors weren’t home.

“Pot to kettle,” he managed to reply. His hands wrapped around Isco’s shoulders for support. He hadn’t been lying earlier. His body truly was melting from the exhaustion and the delirious thought that they were finally doing this. The plane ride to Madrid had taken far too long, as had the drive to Toni’s apartment. Everything that had built up to this had left strung tight and begging for release.

Isco sucked harder on Toni’s neck. He was going to leave a mark and Toni was going to have to buy makeup to hide it since none of shirts went that high. Toni pulled him closer.

“Isco, please,” he said, turning his head so that he could kiss anything he could reach—Isco’s hair, his ear, his temple. Isco’s hands travelled up and down his chest, moving without rhythm or guidance. There was no grace to their desperation. There was only heat, lust, and the maddening thought that they were finally doing this, after months together and months apart, after so many lonely nights.

“I have wanted you for years,” Isco whispered, looking at Toni right in the eyes. It was more than an admission of physical desire, so big it threatened to choke them both. Toni swallowed.

“I know,” he managed to breathe out. His body shivered. His fingers shook. His heart trembled. “I know,” he repeated. If their words were ink and their skin canvases, their bodies would soon be tattooed from head to toe with everything they longed to say to one another.

— — — 

Agente Siete was the type of person you just couldn’t ignore. He went by the name Cristiano and he had a thick accent, which he hid easily enough when he wanted to. His presence could fill a whole room regardless of whether it was a banquet hall or a shabby cottage. People’s eyes tracked him everywhere he went. He wasn’t good at being inconspicuous, which would make him a rather poor secret agent were he not so good at everything else. 

Today, however, he was small. He was cowered. He was a shadow of the man Toni knew. He took the same chair Ancelotti had taken two days before and placed it in front of the bed. 

Toni moved, once again leaning against the wall to put space between them, although this time it wasn’t because he didn’t want to stare at Cristiano’s face up close. This time Toni just couldn’t bear to be near the other man. Cristiano’s pain was palpable. It surrounded him on all sides and filled every inch of free space with its dreadful misery. Just looking at him made Toni want to give information he didn’t have, confess truths that had never happened.

They stared at one another for a couple of seconds in silence. A combination of good manners and genuine sorrow had Toni fighting himself to stop the ‘I’m sorry’ from stumbling out of his mouth. 

Saying he was sorry, as light and meaningless as it may be, would be an admission of guilt he couldn’t afford.

“He was shot in the head while he slept,” Cristiano said and he didn’t have to specify ‘who’, the sorrow in his voice saying it for him. He lifted his left hand, pointed at his own temple, and pretended to shoot. He even made a little sound effect to go with the movement. “Clean hit. Killed instantaneously. He was a heavy sleeper, so I bet he didn’t even feel the gun against his head.”

Cristiano took a deep breath and looked up. “Luka, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. Isco’s finger must have slipped. The first shot hit his shoulder and the second his carotid artery. He bled out. Doctors say he must have lied there from anywhere from two to ten minutes, all alone, incapable of stopping the bleeding.”

“Isco’s hands don’t slip,” Toni said, making Cristiano’s head snap in its haste to look at him. “He doesn’t slip,” he repeated. “He never has.”

“Ancelotti told me you were going with this story. Is that really the best you have?” Cristiano asked, and it was funny how he didn’t sound angry or frustrated. He just sounded broken.

Toni wondered if Cristiano had come to him not in the hope of acquiring information he could use in a thirst for vengeance, but in the hope that Toni would give him something to appease his pain. A valid explanation. A promise. A lie.

What would he even prefer? To hear Isco had betrayed them or to hear Bale and Luka were the traitors and Isco needed to take them out? Most people would wish for the latter, but Cristiano was wholly unpredictable sometimes, and right now, Toni had no idea what to expect from him.

“It’s the truth.”

“And how do you know that? You were sleeping in the break room while the whole thing happened. You have no way to know if he really did it.”

“No,” Toni agreed. Cristiano’s shoulders dropped the slightest fraction. “But I know Isco, and I know he wouldn’t have done it.”

Cristiano shook his head at him. They sat in silence for a moment before Cristiano continued speaking.

“You know, I’ve never liked Isco. He’s childish, temperamental and paranoid. When you two started dating”— Toni flinched, but Cristiano didn’t notice or didn’t care to notice— “I thought you could do so much better than someone who is as likely to stalk you one second as he is likely to throw you out the next. But I was content for you because he obviously made you happy, and I like to see the people I care for happy.”

“Thank you,” Toni said, although the words didn’t mean much in a time like this.

“You know what much Gareth meant to me,” Cristiano said.

“I do.”

They had never talked about it. He was friends with both Cristiano and Agente Once, but they weren’t that type of friends. Still, actions said more than words, and Cristiano had always been an affectionate person. It wasn’t difficult to read into all the smiles they reserved for one another. There were also the hugs, the longing eye contact, and the way Agente Once gave himself a stomach bug when one of Cristiano’s mission went wrong and they couldn’t find him.

Toni had often looked away whenever he caught one of their exchanges, not wanting to intrude a private moment.

“And knowing all this, you are telling me everything we have on Isco—and we have _a lot_ —is fake? You are going to insist that he didn’t do it? Even though you have literally no way to prove this?”

Toni blinked. His stomach lurched. A drop of sweat fell past his temple, down the curve of his cheek and onto his upper lip.

“I can’t tell you anything else.”

“You can’t or you won’t?” Cristiano’s voice raised with each word. He got up on his feet and there he was, the spy Toni knew. The one who was a towering, skilled and incredibly frightening secret agent. 

“I don’t know what happened. You said it yourself, I was asleep when the whole thing happened and then I was arrested. There’s nothing I can tell you, other than I just know that Isco wouldn’t have murdered two people like that.”

Cristiano gave him a scrutinizing stare. “I’m going to find out what happened,” he said. 

Toni stared back. “Okay.”

“And if I discover you had anything to do with the murders, you and your boyfriend are dead men,” Cristiano finished before he stormed out of the room.

— — —

Toni was good at a great many number of things. He had an exceptional memory, a clear mind for design and tactics. He had a degree in electronic engineering and a master’s in mechanics. He could create just about anything with the right tools, and he could make said tools as well if needed. He was decent in tense situations, he could speak in five languages and he knew how to knit.

He wasn’t, nonetheless, great at everything. Case in point: the stove in front of him, which was currently on fire.

“Oh my god, what are you doing?” Isco asked as he shoved Toni out of the way and ran outside the apartment, coming back not two seconds afterwards with a fire extinguisher in tow. “I know I said I’m not a picky eater, but a burnt to a crisp meal is a bit too much.”

“I was trying to make us pasta for dinner,” Toni said, giving the stove a disenchanted look like the piece of equipment had personally disappointed him.

“By setting the apartment on fire? I thought you knew how to cook,” Isco said. He put the fire extinguisher down and gave the stove a probing kick with his feet.

“Not really? I know how to cook toast and that’s about it. I figured boiling something couldn’t be that hard. There’s water involved. Who knew you could start a fire with water?” Toni asked. Isco gave him a look that said ‘everyone on earth but you, idiot’.

“But what about all the food you have in your fridge?” to prove his point, Isco walked up to said fridge and started pulling plastic containers out. “You’ve got everything here. Lasagna, paella, beef… You’ve even got seafood rice, which, by the way, is looking moldy as fuck.”

“Take-away. I usually order when you’re sleeping your _siesta_.” Toni said.

“Really?” Isco tilted his head to the side like a confused puppy as he looked at Toni. “All of it?”

“Yupe.”

“Huh.” Isco put the food back in the fridge and gave the stove another glance. “I guess I didn’t know that.”

“I’m taking that as a compliment,” Toni said.

He was trying to find some good in all of this and not focus on the fact that he’d almost burned down his apartment trying to cook some goddamn pasta. Isco, of course, noticed this. For months, he hadn’t noticed how Toni was ridiculously lovesick for him, but the second they started dating—and yes, Toni had yet to stop feeling that burst of happiness in his chest each time he said that word—he became far more perspective than he had any right to be.

“If it makes you feel any better, I once burned down a kitchen in Chile while trying to cook a pot of rice.”

“That does make me feel better, actually,” Toni admitted, making Isco grin at him.

Together they opened a couple of windows, threw away all melted plastic bits and cleaned the walls, making the kitchen look semi-presentable again.

“Let’s go out for dinner. There is a new restaurant nearby that I want to try,” Isco suggested, making Toni snort.

“This is Madrid. There is always a new restaurant nearby,” Toni said as he walked to the living room. Even though he had his back to Isco, he could somehow still see the other man roll his eyes at him. Call it a sixth sense for sarcasm.

“Not ones that I want to try, though,” Isco replied, moving past Toni to get to their bedroom.

Well, Toni’s bedroom. They had yet to talk about Isco moving in, which was just as well. They’d only started dating each other one month ago. Never mind that they’d known each other for two years and were already closer than Toni had ever been to anyone else. There was still a lot about each other that they didn’t know. Not necessarily secrets, although there were a lot of those as well. Just stuff they hadn’t shared yet.

Not to mention, knowing Isco, the second Toni mentioned him moving in he would freeze up and start rambling about how it wasn’t safe, it would put Toni in danger, it was too much.

Toni already had a speech semi-ready for the occasion, with precise rebuttals for everything Isco could say, but he should make sure it was perfect before he brought up the dreaded subject.

While Isco did whatever he had to do in the bedroom, where half the closet was dominated by his clothes, Toni checked his laptop for results on his latest search. He’d found better pictures and information on Ter Stegen, his french pal, and the lookout guy, apparently called Rafinha. It was only a matter of time until they found them again.

X, on the other hand, was a ghost. They had nothing on him now that they didn’t have two months ago. The nagging teeth of frustration were beginning to sink into Toni’s skin. The only consolation was knowing that once they found Ter Stegen, their chances of finding X would increase by tenfold.

After he was done, Toni joined his other half in the bedroom.

“Anything?” Isco asked. He was lying on the bed, playing Plants vs Zombies on his phone with his head hanging upside down on the edge of the mattress.

“Nothing,” Toni told him. He spent the next few seconds finding something nice for both of them to wear, throwing Isco’s clothes at his face when he was done.

“What are these?” Isco asked.

“Your clothes. We’ll be dressed to impress tonight.”

Isco put down his phone and pushed himself up on his elbows so that he could give Toni his best unimpressed look. “Impress whom? I’ve already done my fair share of impressing. Look, it’s done,” Isco waved his hand between him and Toni, “there’s no need for more impressing here.”

Toni huffed. “Yes, there is. We’ve got to keep things fresh.”

“Fresh?”

“Yes,” Toni repeated. “We can’t become one of those couples who never does anything for each other and spends their whole evenings playing Sudoku and watching bad romance films.”

Isco lifted his hands, conceding his defeat. “Are you having some kind of mid-life crisis? Because I never thought I’d hear the words ‘keep things fresh’ from someone who builds puzzles as a hobby, but maybe I’m wrong and—“ 

The rest of Isco’s sentence was swallowed by Toni when the german decided he’d had enough and pulled Isco in for a distracting kiss. Toni sucked Isco’s bottom lip into his mouth before he bit the cherry flesh, knowing the motion would drive Isco mad. It always did.

“Admit it. You get the hots for me when I start bitching about something,” Isco murmured after they parted. His eyelashes fluttered against Toni’s cheeks, which were already a revealing shade of pink.

“Maybe I just wanted you to shut up and decided kissing you was the best way to do it,” Toni said and when Isco grinned at him, smug and obnoxious, Toni felt the his toes curl, enamored by the smile nonetheless.

“Nah, pretty sure I’m just that irresistible. It’s alright, you know? It’s perfectly okay to admit you are into someone so ridiculously gorgeous and charming as me. Totally unders—“

Toni kissed him again and then started to move to the center of the bed, pulling Isco with him by the collar of his shirt. Afterwards, Toni got up on his knees and started stripping on top of him. He took his time opening the buttons of his shirt, not putting up a show, but not rushing it either.

Working together meant that they spent most of their free time with one another, but with their work schedules, they never knew how long these moments would last and when the next ‘one month in the Arctic’ mission would come. So when they did have time, Toni liked to enjoy the moment. He liked to linger. No rush, no hesitation.

“I love this,” Isco said.

“Good,” Toni whispered, a different set of words on the tip of his tongue wanting to come out.

It wasn’t the right time, but maybe later. They had yet to talk about their future together, but they would have to one day. Maybe then, Toni would find the strength to say those words. For now, he would kiss Isco until his body was covered in love marks and they belonged to one another, wholly and unnaturally.

— — —

“Do you know what rough-housing is?” Sergio asked him. Toni looked up, surprised by Sergio’s sudden entrance. Cristiano had been with him the day before, so he wasn’t expecting anyone for a day or two.

Before Toni got a chance to answer, Sergio walked the five steps that separated the door and the bed and punched Toni in the face.

“What the fuck?” Toni shouted, or would have shouted were his mouth not covered in blood and his vision flooded with nauseating stars and blank spots. 

“You’ve been uncooperative in your past interrogations. I’m here to change that,” Sergio said, one hand on Toni’s shoulder to hold him in place, the other hanging in the air like a cocked gun. “Now, before we begin—“

“We haven’t begun yet?” Toni gasped, misery dripping from his voice in fat honey droplets.

Sergio flashed Toni a smile that could be taken as friendly were it not for the fact that Sergio was about to beat him up.

“You’ve seen me work. Does it look like we’ve begun?”

Toni swallowed. The bitter taste of copper made him wince, but he otherwise held his ground. “No,” he admitted. Sergio was a kind man. He was one of the few in their agency Toni would call a genuine friend. When Toni first started working there, Sergio was one of the first people to approach him.

Now he was about to beat Toni up because besides being a kind man, Sergio Ramos was also extremely loyal and a professional.

“Why did he do it?” Sergio asked.

“I don’t know,” Toni replied, making Sergio sigh.

“Don’t make me do this.”

“Then don’t,” Toni said, looking at Sergio in the eye. “You know me. You know Isco. You know I’m not lying.”

Sergio’s grip on Toni’s shoulder grew tighter. “I have something for you to listen to,” he said.

“Okay.”

Sergio sat on the same chair Mr. Ancelotti and Cristiano had occupied, but he didn’t put as much space between himself and the bed. Toni didn’t dare to move away either.

Static occupied the silence for a few seconds before Isco’s voice replaced it. The sound expanded the space in Toni’s chest, filling the inside of his ribs with air and hope.

_“Hey, amor. You know that concert I told you we should go to? I’ve been thinking about it, and I really think we should go, prices be damned. How often do El Barrio play in a small bar in Guindalera? Also, I think I left a package of milk open in the fridge, so you should probably check that out before it goes rotten, yeah? You’ll need to buy more. And, Toni, I— I’ll talk to you soon. Stay safe.”_

After the voice clip ended, Sergio and Toni stared at one another. Sergio, waiting for Toni to react. Toni, waiting for things to start making sense.

“El Barrio isn’t scheduled to play in Guindalera. We checked.”

“And I bet there’s no rotten milk in my fridge either,” Toni guessed.

Sergio’s lips quirked up. “Bingo. So, wanna tell me what this is all about?”

“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t know?” Toni tried, sighing when Sergio didn’t answer. “We weren’t together for that long. There’s a lot he never told me.”

“And he knows that too. _Think_ , Toni. He wouldn’t have sent you this message if he didn’t think you could figure it out.”

Toni tried to do as he was told, but no answers came forth. He had been in this room for too long, stuck with nothing but bad romance novels and cable television for company. He couldn’t think of anything. Whenever he attempted to recall the last few days before everything went to hell, all that came to his mind were the moments they spent in Toni’s place being lazy together.

The truth was Toni had no idea what was going on. He didn’t know where Isco was or if he was still okay. He didn’t know how long the IAC planned to keep him locked up. All he could do was tell himself that he wasn’t scared. He wasn’t scared. _He wasn’t scared_ , hoping that repeating the words would make them true.

“Look, Isco is my friend. If he did what he did, I’m sure there was a reason, but we need to find him and clear things up. He can’t keep running forever.”

“I know that,” Toni whispered.

“Then what else?” Sergio asked. “What are we missing? Just give me something to work with. What happened before that night? Who would want to frame him? I can’t go back with my hands empty-handed. The bosses are getting impatient.”

Toni suggested the only idea he had. “We were working a case before this. The two failed missions. We were keeping tabs on the people involved. Any of them would have a reason to do this.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Toni asked before he could stop himself. He was always testing his luck far more than he should. Isco had often joked about how it was going to get them into trouble one day.

Sergio grinned. “Okay,” he said. “What? Did you really think I was going to beat you up for information?”

“I— Well, you said.”

“I beat up punks, Toni. Punks and criminals and you are neither. I was sent to scare you this time.”

“And next time?”

“Let’s hope there won’t be a next time,” Sergio said, patting him on the head before he left.

Toni lied back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

He had known what he was getting into when he joined the IAC and yet, during times like this, he wished nothing more than to be able to travel to the past and slap his younger self.

Of course, if he hadn’t joined, he wouldn’t have met Isco, and wasn’t that a funny thought as well.

— — —

Isco didn’t like to go out at night. The combination of loud noises, too many people, and the heat pressed all the wrong buttons in him. He disliked crowds in general, as well as open spaces; found the former put everyone else at risk while the latter put him in the vulnerable spot. He had a love affair with bad soap operas and more than once, Toni had caught him staring longingly at puppy videos on his phone.

He slept with a gun on the bedside table, another strapped to his ankle. It wasn’t unusual for him to wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare, although he never reached for either pistol. When it happened, Toni always woke up with him and they spent the rest of the evening watching television together.

Isco wouldn’t tell him what the dreams were about and Toni didn’t ask. Some things were better left untouched.

Toni told Isco about his family. How his mom and dad died in a car crash when he was seven. He and his brother had to move in with his aunt afterwards, but Toni never managed to make a new space for himself in their new lives. He moved out as soon as he turned eighteen, but he flew back every year for Christmas and lied about his job, his life, and everything in between.

“Is that why you joined the IAC? So that you could keep running?” Isco asked him.

“I joined because they asked me to and I wanted to do some good. I wanted to help others.”

They were lying on Toni’s bed, with Isco’s head on Toni’s stomach and his body sprawled across the mattress. The sound of the rush hour traffic grounded them in reality while the sound Isco’s favorite band playing in the living room speakerphones made the world disappear. The blinds were half-closed, letting in only a few rays of orange sunshine.

Isco left for Indonesia tomorrow, so they were using their time left together the best way they knew how: by doing nothing.

“Do you ever think about quitting? Finding a new job, pretend you don’t know anything about the world of spies and hacking and go about having a normal life,” Isco said.

Toni’s hand, which was scratching the back of Isco’s ear, stilled for a second before it went back to work.

“Sometimes,” Toni admitted. They all had their weak moments and he was no exception. “What about you? Have you ever thought about getting a fresh start?”

“Not before, but now… Now I think it wouldn’t be so bad. I think I’d make a good physical education teacher.”

Toni snorted. “A Phys Ed teacher? Really?”

“What’s wrong with that?” Isco asked, twisting in Toni’s arms so that he could lean up on his elbows to peer at the other man.

“Nothing, just didn’t think you’d want to spend the rest of your life tormenting little kids with torture exercises disguised as education.”

In return for his comment, Isco crawled up the bed until he was on his fours on top of Toni and then fell on him, pushing all the air out of Toni’s lungs, fat loaf that he was. “I should have known you were a nerd as a kid. I bet you hated playing tag as well.”

“Everyone hated playing tag,” Toni said with a frown. Isco smiled against Toni’s neck, biting the skin there before he answered.

“People who weren’t nerds enjoyed playing tag.”

Toni huffed. “Would you like to stay in Madrid or would you prefer to live somewhere else?” he asked for a change of subject.

“I’d like to go back to Benalmádena.”

“Is that where you grew up?” Toni asked, so quietly he almost couldn’t hear himself over the background noise.

“Yeah,” Isco confessed, just as quiet.

“And what else?” Toni asked. He normally wasn’t one to pry information out of Isco, but if Isco was in the mood to share, it didn’t hurt to push him.

“I’d like to get a little house near the sea with a porch and a backyard. I miss having a tan.”

Toni wondered where he fit in Isco’s dream; if he fit there at all. He waited for the other man to say something, but instead they fell into silence, their conversation a wispy idea to be lingered upon in later times. Toni couldn’t see that future, the one where Isco was a teacher and he was what? An accountant or an IT worker, something boring without the challenges he’d grown accustomed to in his current line of work. He couldn’t see them on a beach house in Benalmádena, wherever that was, living a quiet and peaceful existence.

He couldn’t see it, but he would like to.

— — — 

Toni had been in containment—stuck in the same lonely cell with gray walls, gray floor, gray everything—for a month when Iker came to see him. 

Never one for mindless chatter, Iker’s opening line was, “You’re being released.” 

Toni sat up on his bed, feeling his muscles complain at the sudden movement. He had tried working out every day to keeps his muscles exercised, knowing that was what Isco would have done, but he had soon gotten bored of the routine. “Oh?” he asked, unsure of what he should say.

“Agente Vientetrés is still at large, but so far we haven’t been able to connect you to what happened and we can’t keep you in custody for any longer,” Iker said, which roughly translated to _we’ve reached a dead-end and so we’re going to throw you out into the real world and use you as bait_.

“Of course,” Toni replied.

Whenever he talked to someone, Iker looked them straight in the eye with the most unimpressed, deadpan, ‘I wish I was dead’ expression. Some people joked about it, called it the look of doom. Toni never participated in those conversations, but he had to agree it was unsettling.

Right now, however, Iker’s look of doom was a comfort. It was nice to know not everything had changed.

“Will I be under watch?” Toni asked as he got up. He took a walk around the room, pretended to tidy things up to give himself a second or two to catch himself.

“No,” Iker said. He looked Toni in the eye. One of the corners of his mouth twitched up.

_Yes_ , Toni heard. He nodded, then glanced at the door. Iker looked around the room, inclined his head for a second as his eyes scanned the empty surfaces.

“There’s nothing,” Toni said.

“Alright. I’ll drive you home. Let’s go home.”

Toni followed Iker through long corridors and past bare rooms, down to the garage, which was just as bare. It took a while for Toni to realize he didn’t know what time of the day it was, or what day of the week for that matter. He did maths in his head while Iker switched on the engine.

He’d been in custody for one month, three days and seven hours, which meant it was now five a.m. on a Sunday.

Toni wanted to ask if this was how they always released their suspects, with no papers, questions or witnesses. If he remained silent, it was because he already knew the answer.

_No_.

“Sergio has been investigating the people you mentioned with James’ help,” Iker said, near the end of the drive. The sun was rising across the horizon, slow and steady as it always did.

Toni waited for him to continue. If he weren’t so bruised, mentally more so than physically, and too tired to feel anxious, Toni’s breath would lodge in his throat and his heartbeat would start hammering in his ears. “And?”

“They’re located in Barcelona. We were able to place one of them in Indonesia during the time of the murders. It’s nothing substantial,” he said.

“But it’s something.” 

“But it’s something,” Iker agreed.

Toni remembered all the times he had worked with Sergio and Iker. All the times Isco had looked at them both like they were his idols. How they both treated Isco like he was their younger brother. 

“If you find him…” Iker started, not bothering to pretend the second Toni would start searching for Isco the second he got his hands on a computer.

“I must inform you immediately,” Toni guessed. He waited for a reply that didn’t come, and when he looked at Iker, the other man was staring fixedly at his own hands placed on the driving wheel.

“Even if we find the people you mentioned, we might not be table to prove Isco is innocent,” Iker said with a heavy pace, as if he was testing out each word individually before he pronounced them.

“So you’re saying you’re going to arrest him regardless of what you find on Ter Stegen and X.”

“I’m saying Modrić and Bale’s deaths changed everything. Don’t trust anyone, Toni. Not even Isco. I know you love him“ —Toni flinched— “but you don’t know what happened. You need be cautious and more importantly, be smart.”

“Thanks, I think.”

Iker nodded at him and let his hands drop from the wheel, bringing it to Toni’s attention that they had reached their destination. Iker handed him his apartment keys in silence and Toni didn’t bother with thanking him again. On his way up, he took the stairs, the idea of being stuck in a small space twisting his throat with a painful grip.

Toni was not sure what he expected to find when he opened the door to his place, but it wasn’t to find it exactly how he had left it.

There was a green sweater tossed over the couch and a gray scarf on the coffee table. They were both Isco’s, although Toni was just as likely to wear them. On the kitchen sink there were dinner plates with remnants of Chinese takeaway clinging onto them. Toni turned on the hot water long enough to give them a quick wash. He checked his fridge, empty save for a couple of beers and a random cucumber, which must have been purchased by Isco since Toni couldn’t think of a single scenario where he’d buy a cucumber.

Toni’s eyes scanned his apartment. He had hoped coming home would flash a light, so to say, on Isco’s message and elucidate him. Instead, everywhere Toni looked, he saw nothing but painful reminders of Isco that clouded his vision, so Toni closed his eyes and went to his bedroom. He pulled down the blinds, stripped until he was naked and slipped underneath the covers with heavy limbs and a heavier heart.

He knew there were cameras all over his apartment right now, recording every one of his movements, but he was too tired to care. He refused to be embarrassed in the sanctity of his own home. If anyone had a problem with seeing his dick, then they could get fucked.

As he was falling asleep, Toni noticed the marks on the wall behind his headboard. He scratched them with his nails, remembering how it had felt to make them.

It was good to be home, but it wasn’t what he needed.

As he was falling asleep, Toni rolled on the bed until he was on Isco’s side. He reached for the bedside table and pulled upon the first drawer. Isco’s handgun was still there. Toni checked for bullets, then laid it on top of the table.

He missed Isco.

The next day, he continued his inspection of the apartment, feeling like a stranger in his own home. He checked for all the cameras and got rid of a few, pretending he was just bumping onto them accidentally and dropping them on the floor. He cleaned all the dirty clothes, mopped the dust and washed the floor.

He turned on his laptop and played on it for a while, checking his email and the scans he’d left running. There wasn’t anything there that James and everyone else at IAC didn’t have access to. Of course, this didn’t mean he was going to give up. Far from it. It just meant he needed a little more time to come up with a better plan.

Toni only realized how fucked up his sleep schedule was when he tried to order takeaway and the lady at the shop informed him they didn’t serve dinner at eight in the morning.

“Sorry, sorry. My mistake,” Toni murmured. He stared at his phone for a couple of minutes before he grabbed his laptop and put on street clothes.

He didn’t notice anyone following him out of the apartment, but Toni was sure they were there somehow. He was IAC’s bait. They were waiting for him to use Isco’s clue and find him or, in competition for the world’s stupidest decision, for Isco to come to him.

Little did they know, Isco wouldn’t risk everything to come for him and Toni had genuinely no idea what his clue meant.

He had breakfast in a quaint café near La Peseta, alone, and when he returned to his apartment he played Isco’s message again and again and again, until the words were engraved in his mind.

He searched for everything. El Barrio. Guindalera. He even ransacked his apartment for a rotten package of milk Isco might have hidden somewhere. There was nothing, of course. Whatever Isco had meant, it was some kind of secret code Toni didn’t understand.

Time passed by, slow and cold. The days were short and full of rain. Nobody from the IAC showed up at his place, although he got an email from James a week after Toni’s release asking how he was doing.

Iker was right. Modrić and Bale’s deaths had changed everything.

Night time was the hardest. Toni worked until he could no longer keep his eyelids open and caffeine was making him sick instead of giving him a buzz. Despite his exhaustion, sleep itself was hard to find and he spent most of his time in bed awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering what happened to his life. 

He began to lose hope of finding Isco after two weeks.

Not a lot, just a tiny bit. With every hour he spent awake instead of asleep, a voice in the back of his head grew louder as it told him maybe he was better off like this, alone, without a job or a boyfriend. It told him his future was an open path now.

And then Toni remembered.

It took him three weeks to get it. Three excruciatingly long weeks spent drawing diagrams and using every resource he had available, including calling in a few favors from Germany, all of which proved worthless. Three weeks looking up word meanings, searching street cameras in Indonesia and running the most extensive background check he’d ever run.

Three weeks for him to remember, with a perversive clarity of mind, that Isco didn’t drink milk. Had never drank milk. Found it, in his own words, ‘disgusting. Did you know we’re the only species who drinks milk past their infancy? It’s the grossest thing on earth. I get eating cheese, ice cream and yogurt, but actually drinking milk? Gross.’ That specific rant had continued for a while, but Toni had to stop listening so he could focus on the job they were working on. At least one of them had to stay focused during missions.

With a levity of pace his mind didn’t share, he got up from the living room couch. He had to make sure he didn’t get up too quickly or whoever was watching him back at the headquarters would notice the change in his demeanor.

Thankfully, there were no cameras in the kitchen, so as soon as Toni crossed the threshold he was able to start throwing the place apart.

Rotten milk. What did Isco mean by that? Was it some kind of metaphor? Since Isco didn’t like milk, Toni rarely bought it for himself. He was fine with just drinking juice for breakfast and eating dry cereal as a midnight snack. It wasn’t like Toni even did the shopping in the first place. Isco was the one who showed up with bags of food out of nowhere. Toni guessed it was because he felt guilty about staying over all the time or some other badly thought-out guilt process. Isco even kept a shopping list on the fridge door.

Toni glanced at said fridge door. There were magnets of places Isco had visited on non-eventful missions, as well as random letters, a few of which spelled the word CULO. No shopping list though. Toni couldn’t have thrown it out by accident, could he? His only chance at finding Isco. It had to be _somewhere._

Toni checked the drawers and the cupboards. Isco could have hidden it there. He was the type to install fake wood paneling on furniture in his spare time. Toni wasn’t surprised when he didn’t find it, but that didn’t mean he was going to give up.

It had to be in the kitchen. A place he hadn’t looked yet. Underneath the floorboard? No, that was too much. Toni glanced at the fridge again and it was with a great sense of pride that he dragged it away from the wall and found an old, dust-covered shopping list underneath it.

Written in blue ink was milk, as well as peaches, apples, cucumber again—why would they need so many cucumbers?— and some other random things. It didn’t take long for Toni to figure out the first letter of each word spelled the world _Palmas_. A quick check in Google Maps showed there was a Calle Palmas in the south of Guindalera.

A part of Toni thought it couldn’t be that simple, but why not? Sometimes the most simple answer was the one closest to the truth.

Toni stuffed the note in his pocket.

He took three different cabs, a bus towards the airport and the subway twice to ensure whoever was in charge of following him that day lost his tail. He thought he saw Varane and Benzema at one point, but he couldn’t be sure. Either way, Toni didn’t stop for a chat. If this didn’t work out like he wanted it to, he was going to catch hell for it, but for now, Toni had to trust his gut and believe this was what Isco wanted him to do.

Calle Palmas was a small street, closed to traffic and lined with pastel houses from side to side. There was a gate blocking the road entrance, but Toni managed to follow a couple inside right before the door closed. Then it was the matter of finding out which was Isco’s house.

Toni checked the note again. There weren’t any numbers, nothing to indicate what house was Isco’s, so Toni walked until the end of the street as he inspected them, then turned around and repeated his steps. All of the houses looked the same, with identical cars parked by the gates, identical grass edges and identical lawn decorations.

Toni had no clue which one was Isco’s house. Up until five minutes ago, he didn’t even know Isco owned a house.

It made sense, but Toni had always thought of him as more of an apartment on a skyscraper guy.

With a sigh, Toni walked down the road again. This time he noticed one of the houses had an electronic panel next to the doorbell. Toni would have to jump another gate to enter, but in for a penny, in for a pound.

The electronic panel was a basic security system, and if Toni had more time or his equipment with him, he’d able be to unlock it through less legal means. Since Toni had neither, he needed to guess the code. Toni got the note out and stared at it. He flipped it around and stared at it through the sunlight, but there were no other clues. Apples maybe? Isco liked apples. He probably liked peaches as well. Toni tried both and was met with disapproving beeping noises each time.

Shit. How many times would he be able to punch in the wrong number before the system locked him out? 

Toni thought back to Isco’s message. He typed in ‘elbarrio’, but again, nothing. Finally, Toni typed in the name of Isco’s favorite song, [Pa Madrid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCo2nFZNxgA&ab_channel=elbarrioflamencoes), which they listened to constantly when it was just the two of them, Toni’s living room, and the setting sun.

A green light flashed on the panel top and the click noise of the door unlocking rang in the air. Toni could almost cry with relief.

He entered the house with a little hesitancy, unsure of what he was going to find.

There was a long hallway ahead, which led to an open living room connected to a white tiled kitchen with yellow walls. The place was surprisingly bare, with the walls empty save for a couple of IKEA paintings and a few choice pieces of furniture. It was the kind of house you found in interior design catalogs, not one people actually lived in.

Still, here and there Toni found evidence that it was Isco’s house in the form of Isco’s favorite jacket thrown over the living room couch and a drawing of a tiger—one of Isco’s nervous tics was the need to keep his hands constantly in motion— by the phone. Toni gave the ground floor bathroom a quick glance before he climbed up the stairs to the first floor.

Isco’s bedroom was not as impersonal as the rest of the house. Most of the space was taken by a ridiculously huge bed with white fluffy covers, just the kind Isco loved. There were more clothes strewn about, as well as framed pictures from places Isco had visited in missions.

There was even a picture of Toni. His face couldn’t be seen, but Toni was able to recognize the back of his own head. He was staring at something blocked by his body, surrounded by buildings and traffic. Isco had somehow managed to capture the image as a beam of sunlight hit the lens, giving the whole picture an ethereal glow. It was quite pretty and it made Toni realize he didn’t have any pictures of Isco, not ones he’d taken himself at least.

In front of the bed there was a closet. The first drawers were full of clothes, but the second to last contained all kinds of fake IDs, passports and bank account statements. Most of them had Isco’s face on them, but when Toni kept looking, he found a Polish passport with his face printed on the second page.

Toni’s hand shook as he held the red booklet. When had Isco made this? And with what purpose? Did he make it for a reason or was he just getting prepared for the sake of being prepared?

There was other stuff in the drawer, including black hair dye and the information for an apartment in Costa Rica.

Finally, Toni checked the last drawer. It contained an assortment of weapons and equipment Toni had given Isco during their time working together. Toni closed the drawer and sat on the floor.

So Isco wanted Toni to come to him. In his subconscious, Toni had known this from the very start, but it was different to know in a subjective way and to be face to face with all the tools he needed to disappear.

Toni had been so sure Isco hadn’t been the one to kill Modrić and Bale while he was locked up, but doubt was a tricky thing. It grew inside people unnoticed until it was big enough to unleash its poison and cripple its carriers body.

Toni stared at the passport. His middle name was ‘Wurst’. Hilarious.

Toni wasn’t sure if he was ready to follow Isco. He had been sure when he knew Isco was an innocent man, but seeing all this robbed that certainty. He felt like he was in a bad romance movie, expected to follow the lead actor on a dangerous adventure for the sake of love, only Toni wasn’t that type of person.

He didn’t follow other people, too full of pride and a love for his own independence. Neither did he throw away his beliefs and moral guides for the sake of love.

He couldn’t follow a murderer just because he was the best thing in his life.

Toni stroked the leather binding on the passport. Isco had somehow managed to find a picture of him that wasn’t horribly unflattering, a rare achievement.

In a split-second decision, Toni grabbed the hair dye and got up. He booked a train ticket to Barcelona and a plane ticket from there to Costa Rica on his phone.

If Isco had trusted him with all this, he must have done it for a reason. Isco was a good person, a little paranoid, but good at heart. Toni couldn’t start doubting that now. He made sending Toni a message his last action his last action before he went off the grid. If he trusted Toni this much, then Toni had no choice but to trust him back. He would go to Costa Rica and he would find Isco and then—

Then they would decide what to do.

Toni wouldn’t follow a bad person for love, but he would follow his best friend and help him prove his innocence. 

 


End file.
